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Streak of bad luck. I've almost never wounded deer before.
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Hunt long enough and it's gonna happen. Don't care who you are.
Course Peetza, you've been at the game long enough to know that....
...But it doesn't matter how long you've hunted, when you lose one, it hurts.
I feel your pain!
Took me years to get over losing(sorta) a bruiser in which I just knew I hit hard. I watched him run up into a big pine thicket and heard him crash. Then, for about ten minutes, I kept hearing alot of thrashing about. Then silence.
I didn't move out of my stand for a good hour or so, well after dark as I shot him with about 20mins. of daylight left, even though I'd heard him crash.
I went to where I'd shot him and there was a massive blood trail. Trailed blood up to where he had crashed in the pines and it literally looked as though somebody had dumped a gallon of red paint in the spot and the pine needles on the ground were all messed up in about a 10ft. circle. When he got up, he walked across the ridge-top of pines but was bleeding less and less till there was no blood at all.
I called off the search till the next day and called about 6 very good hunters in to help me the next morning. We searched all day with no success. Finding no more blood then the last drop I'd found/marked the night before.
Well, about a week later I found him(with the help of the buzzards) piled up in some foothills. He had circled back behind my stand in the total opposite direction he was headed when he crashed in the pines.
One of the guys which I called was a very experienced hunter and says deer will try to 'pack' wounds with debris(leaves,pine needles etc.) to stop bleeding. Over the years, I've heard this said by others. Don't know if this is true but I do know the blood trail up to where the buck crashed was massive and then just stopped when he left that spot. Maybe he did pack the wounds or maybe his organs just plugged the holes, still a mystery today.
Whichever the case, this was the first deer I'd ever lost and it bothered me so bad, I just about quit hunting.
Lost another nice buck a few years ago cause a anti-hunter wouldn't let myself or game warden on his property to retrieve it.
In 40+ yrs. of deer hunting, losing these two deer still haunt me today.
As far as you getting a deer in your freezer, your stretch of bad luck WILL change. Keep at it.
As far as "LIVE from the stand!" being a curse, when I look at the expression on that 5yr. olds face, "LIVE from the stand" is already a huge success. Everything else is just 'icing on the cake'.
P.S. It wouldn't hurt to drive your car around the neighborhood to try and spot the deer and possibly knock on a few doors to ask if you can look around. All they can do is say no.