Not being sure of the hit, I tend to err on the side of caution. I chose to wait until morning to follow it up.
As Greg mentioned, I have a new family member this year, and spent the summer training him to blood trail. He had been on a few tracks already this fall, and had done a great job. But I still don't have complete faith, and like to be able to confirm his trailing with finding actual blood on the ground as we go. I figured that daylight would give us the best chance of being able to do that.
After a restless night, eventually it was time to go. The sun was up and lighting was good. We started searching where I thought the deer had run, but Arlo insisted that something further up the hill smelled interesting. He was right on the money, and we had first blood.
Continuing on down the steep hillside blood sign was fairly sparse, with mostly small droplets scattered along the direction of travel. As we reached the bottom the sign picked up, and Arlo was moving right along. There were a couple of spots where I didn't see blood where he wanted to go, and pulled him back to where I thought we should be headed. I was wrong. Arlo was right, and it wasn't long before Greg had it sorted out.
The deer made a couple of changes in direction and headed toward a thick area that had been clearcut 6 or 7 years ago. As we entered the thicker stuff this is what we found.