I'd have a better story to report if I could shoot straight.  Unfortunately the story that came of today's adventure is of a quick shot at a doe followed by six hours of hard tracking with no luck so far.  My brother Aaron did a little "drive" for us this morning and managed to push three doe right past my stand.  They came in at a full run but amazingly paused long enough for me to get a shot off right in front of me.  It should have been a simple shot but somehow I managed to aim too low (we believe) and grazed her brisket leaving a pile of coarse white hair and a spray of blood where she had been standing. 

White hair like that is never a welcome sight when you start out on a blood trail as it usually indicates a low (often not fatal) shot.  We were hopeful in the beginning as we casually followed an easy track marked by large red drops of blood.  A short while later, however, we found ourselves nearly on hands and knees scanning the dried leaves for drops of blood barely bigger than a pin head.  Like blood hounds after a fugitive, Aaron and I followed that deer for six hours and nearly a mile until we had to pull off the search on account of darkness.  As far as we could tell she hardly slowed down for the entire distance she covered today.  What took us hours of searching she probably covered in minutes. 

We pulled off the search at the intersection of a clear-cut section of forest (now overgrown with very thick head high saplings) and a wide boggy spot on a stream that flows through the woods.  We still had decent blood and should be able to resume the search in the morning.  If she went west across the river my chances are slim on picking up the track on the other side.  If she went south into the thick overgrown cut-over, and finally slowed down, I may still stand a chance.  Considering the long distance she covered and the very little blood we had to follow, there is a better than even chance that she is not going to die, but I have to try again in the morning. 

There is nothing more frustrating in hunting than wounding an animal that you can't recover, it is regrettable and shameful.  The only solace I have is that there are few hunters in that woods with the skills, experience, patience, ethics, or desire to follow that trail as far as we already have.  If she is dead at the end of that blood trail, I will find her or wear myself out trying.