What went wrong?

[Stumpkiller]

Unfortunately, the straight down (or nearly so) from behind shot is a bad one with a bow (live and learn).  It's one of those hard life lessons that you should wait for the shot when a deer walks up from behind you and underneath your stand.  I have let several pass that never did offer a broadside or quartering in shot since my lost buck.  That was the first year I had hunted from a tree-stand and, as I said, I went back to still-hunting for many years after that.  

I only put one up again four years ago after we purchased a home with land.

[Crash]

If she was quartering away and you hit forward, she is most likely still out there as you probably missed the vitals.  What looks like a lot of blood on the ground can turn out to be not so much that the deer dies.  I read an article by Leonard Rue one time, he had calculated how much blood a deer could lose and survive.  He then made a mixture that looked like blood and left a trail for a buddy of his to follow.  His buddy followed the trail and said, there's no way a deer could live after loosing that much blood.  Rue said he had "blood" left after leaving a trail around 150 yards long and had to go back and leave puddles just to use it all up.

[Crash]

Forgot to comment on the straight down shot, it's real bad, don't do it.  Very hard, next to impossible to get both lungs straight down and very difficult to go thru the whole deer and still get thru the brisket for a blood trail.

[30coupe]

He said the deer was 12 yards from the tree, guys. That's NOT straight down, especially from a 15 foot stand. A quartering away shot is supposed to be the ideal shot. That's not to say one can't hit too far forward on such a shot, but I certainly would not criticize anyone for taking that shot.