You did good by backing out.
There is a chance of rain in Southern Indiana. Not sure where you are at.
Her is what I wrote for a magazine article a few years back.
* A gut-shot deer is probably the most difficult to recover because of the poor blood trail and the hunter's impatience to wait him out. A lot of bowhunters want to hurry up and find the deer. Since the liver and stomach are close together, it is possible that the deer will go down and die quickly if the shot also penetrates the liver. If the deer is dead in an
hour, he will still be dead in 4 hours. Have patience, he will not go anywhere. Wait him out for at least 4 hours. Wait overnight if the deer is shot in the evening.
When a deer is shot in the stomach area, he will usually take several short jumps and commence walking or running. His back will usually hunch up and his legs will be spread wide. The hair from this wound is brownish gray and short. The lower the shot is on the animal, the lighter colored the hair will be. The blood trail is usually poor with small pieces of ingested material (stomach contents). If the intestines are punctured there will be green slimy material or feces Take your bow with you because a second shot
might be required.
Here are some General Tracking tips..
GENERAL TRACKING TIPS* After shooting the deer, stay in your stand and be quiet for the recommended time. A noise might push your deer away. He could be bedded down less than 100 yards away.
* It is very important it is to keep your eye on the deer and solidly mark in your mind where he was when you last saw him. Find some landmark that will mark that point. This way if the initial blood is sparse, you may pick up a better trail at this point and eliminate some ground to track. Immediately after the shot , really concentrate on that deer and where you lose sight of him. Very important.
* I have found it very helpful to tie a piece of pink surveyor ribbon around my stand tree at eye level from where I shot. After noting several terrain features near where the deer was standing and where it ran too, I tie on the ribbon before coming down. From the ground looking back up to the ribbon, I can get a better visual for locating exactly where the deer was and went.
* Before beginning the tracking, mark where you shot the deer with a piece of white toilet paper hung on a branch.
* Mark the trail periodically with more toilet paper as you track. This will give you a line on the deer's travel.
* When you find the arrow, check for hair, tallow, blood, etc. This will give you a good clue on how to track. Example: Tallow and slime means you should wait 4 hours.
* Check for blood carefully, walking off to the side of the run.
* Look for blood on trees, saplings, and leaves that are about the same height as the wound. Blood will sometimes rub off the body.
* If tracking as a group, spread out a little. Keep noise to a minimum. In tracking, sometimes "too many cooks can spoil the stew." It would be better if only 2 or 3 people tracked the deer. If the blood trail runs out, you can always get more help to search for the deer
* While tracking a deer that you have shot and you jump a deer and it flags its tail, it's probably not your deer. A wounded deer will very seldom "flag." BUT - check it out anyway.
* Gut-shot deer have a habit of going to water. If you lose a gut-shot deer's trail, check out the water holes in the area. He could be down by
one.* Tracking at night presents special problems with visibility. The blood and the deer will both be hard to see. A Coleman gas lantern will help a lot in both cases. If the deer is not hit well, and no rain is forecast, wait until morning. If he is dead in 10 minutes or 4 hours, he will still be dead in the morning.
* I like to track every deer I shoot from where it was standing when the arrow hit. Even if I see or hear it go down, I start tracking from the starting point. I figure the experience of following the trail has to be good practice, and may be helpful someday if I do get a poor hit.
* Take a compass or GPS bearing to where you last saw the deer, and another one to where you last heard any noise from it's flight. It might prove very helpful.
* A GPS unit could be a handy tool to mark and plot the trail of the deer. If the search has to be discontinued for the night it could put you back at the exact spot where you left off to finish the job
* It helps to have someone who did not shoot the deer to help with the blood trial. Many an experienced hunter in his excitement misses things.
* Stay off of the blood trail, and use a small piece of tolled paper to mark each spot
* Get down on your hands and knees when a blood trail is hard to see it helps. From this angle while night tracking you can shine the light in the direction of travel and often see blood that does not show when standing over it.
* If the blood trail ends start looking off to the sides of the trail as a lot of the times a deer will double back.
* Look at the bottom of leaves on branches at deer body height. Sometimes as the branch slides along the body of a deer it is the under side of the leaf that picks up the blood.
* You will often find a gut shot deer or liver shot deer dead in the water not just beside it. so look for an ear or the side of the deer in deeper water too.* Some shots that look good may be one lung or a poor liver hit because of the angle. These deer can take several hours to die. Be careful about pushing them to soon, since they will rarely leave much blood sign if they are jumped when bedded.
* Look ahead as you blood trail for deer parts and movement. Your deer may still be alive and you might be able to get a second shot or back off with out spooking it.
* Look for disturbed leaves and broken twigs as well as for the blood sign on hard to follow blood trails.
* It is often hard to follow a blood trail in grass. It seems that the blood can fall all the way to the ground without hitting a single blade of grass.
* Look for clusters of ants, flies and daddy longlegs. You can find small drops of blood because these bugs are feeding on it.
* Often times when the blood trail seems to end you will find the animal off to one side and not in the same direction of travel.
* Listen for birds like magpies, jays, and crows. Sometimes they make a ruckus where the animal lies dead.
* Be persistent!
* A dog can often prove very useful if legal. Even your house pet. They can see with their nose what we can’t see with our eyes.
* Use your nose. Sometimes you can smell a deer you can't see. A gut shot is even more likely to have a smell.
* When trailing at night use a couple of the Chem Lights that you can get at WalMart for less than a buck. You don't use these as lights to see blood, but they are hung on limbs at the last blood found. That way nobody has to stand on the last blood and everyone can easily see where the last blood found is at
* Did I say be persistent!
we all need help sometimes!!!!.....turkey scout