Odd one yesterday...

[TFin04]

Shot a doe with my 50cal muzzleloader (250gr Hornady SST) at 50 yards. Have this gun sighted in right for 50. Was able to use a branch for support and felt good about the shot. Went in for lunch, came back 45 min later and couldn't for the life of me find a speck of blood. I knew I was in the right area. We searched and searched, and finally found a single bit of fatty material with some blood on it, which I was not happy with. Couldn't find anything of a trail, so we started circling the area.
 
Ended up finding my doe 120 yards from the shot, with a perfectly placed hole right behind her shoulder blade, dead on to where I was holding!
 
We backtracked her blood trail, and she didn't really start bleeding until 5 yards before she collapsed.
 
Field dressing proved I hit the heart and both lungs. How she was able to run that far, with little to no blood trail no less, amazes me. The SST opened up well, the heart was essentially in two pieces and the exit wound was quite large. I even lost quite a bit of meat due to damage. My grandfather was helping me out, he was surprised as well.

These are some tough animals when they want to be. Anyway, thats my odd blood trail story.

[heart n sole]

I shot a nice buck with my 06. The deer was in tall grass coming across an opening I was watching, and I watched it go down like a ton of bricks (at about 75 yards). My partner walked out of the woods as I went to inspect him and asked where it was. I told him he was almost standing on it. I was shocked when we got to the spot. No deer, just a lake of blood that looked like it would have drained him. We found that he had drug himself to the edge of the woods and went into the marsh (water, large cattails; etc.). There was blood and pieces of matter hanging on most every reed as we walked through, but it ended with no deer to be found and the signs just dissappeared. We got 4 more people after lunch to pick up the trail to find him. Again, we followed the trail but never found him. I have never seen a deer lose so much blood, and have so much matter hanging and not be found.

[buckhunter21]

Deer are weird animals in that they can take a beating and keep on going.  Been there and done that.  How long was it from the time you shot him to the time you went over to him?  Is it possible you went there too soon and you pushed him?