In full the full story and pics….. gotta have pics! Good luck Daver
Welp...the full story is that I screwed up. I can't remember the last time I wounded a buck and didn't recover it. But this one appears to have vanished. I took a frontal shot, which I don't recall ever attempting one of those before...and I will never try another one.
I think I set the stage for failure by not pointing the decoy more towards me. I really can't say why I didn't, as I have successfully decoyed many bucks with the nose of the decoy quartering towards me. Since he was so close, I thought I could get away with it that shot. Never again. He was approaching Geeky Dekey nose to nose, but he was able to stay pretty much straight on the whole time because I had messed up when I set the deke up. I dunno...I guess I figured he was so close that I had it in the bag.
I watched some YouTube videos last night and while I believe I could fairly easily blow through the scapula, should I hit it. I have done that at least once in the past few years, so that gave me some reason to think that I could do it again. I now think that is only really a thing if the deer is broadside...hitting the scapula on a frontal shot is a whole different animal...no matter the arrow set up, etc.
I think he dropped ever so slightly at the shot, but just enough that I think I hit the scapula and then the arrow went "up", more out the neck v. into the body cavity...where I do believe it would have been very fatal, very fast. But the margin of error is just too small for me to ever try it again.
I will archery hunt for does, but am not likely to shoot a buck...I had my chance. Sorry for the bummer story...but I thought the lesson might be valuable for others.