Advise on searching for a likely miss.

With both my .243 and my '06, the sequence of sounds for a hit is "Boom, Whop". A miss has pretty much always been a solo "Boom" or a "Boom, Whish". In this latter case I watch the deer's behavior to be pretty certain as to a miss. I will, however, go to the place where the buck stood, checking for any blood.

Like Art says, you can only do so much. I've had times early in my hunting career that I gave up too early. But, if you've put that much effort in, I'd call it good enough

I had a HUGE deer at forty yards that I'd have bet any amount of money was dead. We spent hours looking for him. Next day, I went back and saw the branches that deflected the slug. Saw him in the field eating a week later.

You owe it to the animal to spend some time looking. I shot a buck at about 300 yards that did what you described. I felt that it was a good shot and thought I noticed the buck "hump" but he turned around and headed back to a stand of pines. Since it was getting dark I didn't try to follow him but backed off and went back the next morning. I eventually found him bedded down around 4-500 yards away and dead where he lay. I NEVER found a single drop of blood or any other sign but I felt I had made the shot. It turned out to be a high gut shot.
A few years ago I tried to help a friend find a deer that he was sure hit but couldn't find any sign. I looked and eventually started following trails in the direction the deer ran. I found a single drop of blood on a log more than 300 yards from where he was shot. I never found another drop and didn't find the deer. The next week I saw the deer with a big wound in his neck and I dispatched him. Same stand on a power line where he had been shot the week before.
Find where he likely went in the woods. There could be several trails to look at. If you still don't find anything then start following trails that run generally downhill. Wounded animals are looking for water or super thick stuff to hold up and heal.
Good luck! I hope it's a wall hanger.

Tough call...but I usually let the search PROCESS determine how long I look rather than the amount of time involved.

Allow me to explain. I'll assume for the sake of the argument that you began the search in the area where he knows the deer was standing when he shot at it (or reasonably close).

I always mark that spot with something...it can be a stick, a blaze orange hat, a backpack...just something you can see well. Then I begin a search pattern around that object. If I know the deer ran to the north then I'll begin sweeping back and forth in semi-circles and keep pushing those semi-circles out further from my point of origin. When I find sign, I mark it...now I have two data points that I can SEE. This is the beginning of a map of where the animal traveled. I mark every single piece of evidence I find...even if I have to take clothes off to use as markers (gloves, hats, jacket, etc).

The next step is to simply go back to the semi-circular search pattern until you find more sign. The amount of time that passes is unimportant...it may take 5 minutes, and on occasion it has taken a few hours...but the process is what guides me...not the clock.

Having said that...if you fail to find any sign at all...and you are confident that you have searched far enough in every direction...then you might consider it to be a miss, or so poorly hit that you won't ever find it. Even on a deer that is hit but leaves no sign, if you search 150 yards in every direction...and search it well...you're likely to find them piled up somewhere. People who I KNOW shoot well generally get a much longer amount of my time when I help them track. When a good shooter tells you he/she was confident of the sight picture, the trigger break was clean, and they are confident they hit...I double check everything because that guy/gal probably hit their target.

I had a Hornady SST in .243 fail on my once (on my son actually, while we were hunting together). At 142 yards, the bullet hit the shoulder and disintegrated before it got through the muscle. It broke no bones...never even penetrated the chest cavity. It was an astounding failure of a bullet. That deer left very little sign. It took several hours of tracking but we eventually found him..311 yards away from the scene of the crime. If my memory is correct that deer might have left only two or three drops of blood along the way...and the only reason we picked up his trail at the end was he crossed a field that had some patchy snow on it. It pays to stick with it...this was his first buck.

I've also seen plenty of deer that were perfectly hit with broad side shots turn around and run. I've seen them drop in their tracks, turn and run, rear up like a horse, you name it...with double lung shots I've seen them do everything but the Hokey Pokey as they left the scene.

I go to the place where the deer was when I shot. Then I get down and crawl around looking for blood, hair, or a patch of hide or muscle. Then I try to follow its running track. At first there will be deep, kicked-up tracks with dirt scattered behind the first few tracks. If I can't continue to see the tracks after a while, I take the same direction as the deer and search out every trail that may fan out in the same direction.
If it's a hit, eventually you'll find a drop or more of blood on one of these trails. This usually gets easier as more blood is found and the deer is recovered.

If there never is any blood found, I still take each possible trail 300+ yards. If this turns up nothing, I head towards water sources and search around them for the deer or blood.

I once did all this on a doe that I shot during archery season and eventually found nothing. I took a compass heading to take me back to my truck several hours later and actually walked up on the dead doe. She had made a semi circle and headed in a direction that was 120 degrees back the other way. That was just luck to have found her.

I once had a deer go about 80 honest yards before it died. Not a single solitary drop of blood. Blind luck I happened to find him. It ran into thick woods.

gspn's comments about markers are well-taken. I use toilet paper, since the white shows up so readily. One of those little pocket-packs of Kleenex would work, as well.

If I have to leave a buck to go get a vehicle, flagging a nearby bush avoids the problem of, "Now, just where was it?"

Many times (but not always) there is no physical evidence at the site where the deer was standing, unless the shot went completely through (two holes). If the deer was hit in a vital organ other than lungs or CNS, it will be found about 300 to 350 yards away. Take out both lungs and no CNS it goes 50 yards, one lung 100 yards, hit in other organs 300 to 350 yards, you can count on it. Good luck!

I f the deer was hit in a vital organ other than lungs or CNS, it will be found about 300 to 350 yards away. Take out both lungs and no CNS it goes 50 yards, one lung 100 yards, hit in other organs 300 to 350 yards, you can count on it

Click to expand...

Well....no. In a lifetime of hunting deer, while some cases are textbook, there's no real rhyme or reason to a deer's reaction to being shot. There is no set # of yards a deer will travel after being shot in a certain location. I've seen heart shot deer travel hundreds of yards before they realized they should be dead,a nd I've seen the same shot result in a bang-flop. While there are generalities involved with how a deer will react to a shot, giving specific or even estimated yardages they'lll travel given a certain hit, then doubling down on the comment by saying "you can count on that" isn't giving newbie hunters a realistic expectation of possible scenarios. I've seen good hits from a 7mm Mag fail to anchor a deer, and a .223 drop the in their tracks. There are many variables to a bullet's impact on a deer, and thats the ONLY thing you can "count on" in my opinion

Number of years back I shot a smallish buck almost head on at about 40 yards with a 3" slug. Went in the front of the chest, destroyed half of the left lung, all of the right lung, and took the top half off the heart.

He still ran maybe 250 yards. Fortunately it was a hay field and I saw him go down about 20 feet from making it back into the woods

I spent a career looking for deer, and people...
With little sign, you can only start a grid search and proceed, and be thorough and persistent.

I hit a deer just a week ago... no sign. Found the deer 75yds away dead in the edge of the woods. No blood except what had been wheezed out of the nostrils where he lay. No hair, not even gouged tracks where he bolted and ran.
FWIW; he had a healed cut/burn on his neck where I shot and "missed" it 3 weeks earlier... again no hair/blood.

On the other hand, I've had copious blood, hair, and even internal organs and bone at site of impact and lost deer.
It's just the nature of the activity. In one instance, It was the next fall when some other hunters on an adjacent property found the skeleton/skull and rack of a large-racked buck I'd shot a and lost the previous fall. He'd traveled over 1/2mi after losing pieces of lung, ribs and enough blood he'd quit bleeding.

Also, I've got a "fiest" (small terrier breed) that I've trained to blood trail. If it was mortally hit and died, she'll find it !!! Been there, done that !!!
She even knows when I've been hunting and shot, and knows when she's "needed" when I walk in the house!!
Very smart little dog !!
She's got two squirrels treed in the front yard as I'm typing this....keeps barking at me with that "come shoot these bastxxd'z, will ya!" bark.

If you hunt/shoot enough, your going to lose one. Just the nature of hunting. And just like "fishing", it seems like it's always the "big one" that gets away.