Last Fall, I shot a realy nice 8 pointer with my bow, I never saw the arrow go. It made a real loud thunk and the buck walked of

[big dav]

Last Fall, I shot a realy nice 8 pointer with my bow, I never saw the arrow go. It made a real loud thunk and the buck walked off like nothing had happened, the next morning I found his blood trail with softball size blood patches for about 300 yards then then he just quit bleeding. I saw him later in the season, Where did I hit him?

[the decoy hunter]

The sound you heard--the loud thunk--was probably the arrow hitting whatever was the ground-tree etc after it had clipped the deer with a non mortal wound.I am assuming you had a heart/lung broadside shot--the arrow perhaps ran high or low--probably low -wounding the animal and after a period of time the blood simply clotted.

[BowHuntingIsMyLife]

Was the blood really dark or bright or just normal?

[Quinnsolo12]

Could have been the liver, or the back of the lungs.