Buck HIt=track or wait????

I would give about 2-4 hours since you got that much time before the rain comes. Then I would start very cautiously.

Get it before the rain. Bright red is good. If the deer only went 40 it is in bad shape. Missing a little detail on the time frame and reaction by the deer at the shot and immediately after , the terrain and foliage type but with the scenario given, deer should be dead in a short time. Hard to track a deer with no sign if it rains. Bright blood, I would push it.A few hours max of wait....WF

Hit sounds good...so go look for it.

If it was laying down when you left leave it until morning. If a fatal hit or serious but non fatal it won't move more than a few yards if at all and will be dead and meat still ok in the morning or so unwilling to move you can finish it off. If you go after it early you risk jumping and losing it.

My $0.02 says that deer isn't going anywhere as long as not pushed.  If fatal shot, he'll be there within 30 yards of the last place spotted.  Rain or not, you won't need a blood trail to find him.  Just might take a couple hours to expire.  I'd wait until morning, even with the rain forecast.

I'm coming from experience on this one, although I'm not proud of the shots I made, it worked twice for me in the past.

ORIGINAL: Claypool313

My $0.02 says that deer isn't going anywhere as long as not pushed.  If fatal shot, he'll be there within 30 yards of the last place spotted.  Rain or not, you won't need a blood trail to find him.  Just might take a couple hours to expire.  I'd wait until morning, even with the rain forecast.

+1

Some wise archers have always told me "if the deer is dead is dead in 1 hour it will be dead in 10." Your odds of recovering a liver or gut shot(both fatal more often than not) deer go down substantially after each time you bump them.

here is what traspired::::::....waited 3 hours from time it was hit, rain only hour away, tracked deer with a bright red blood trail, laid down 3 times within 100 yards, after 3 time, they backed out and waited til morning..rained all night...went in and found nothing after 3 hours of searching..heavy mountain laurel...looked in small creeks nearbye and spend afternoon looking in area also..MY opinion...it was a toss up whether to track or not because of rain...sometimes 30 ft .. up is too high because of angle..20 ft up would have taken both lungs..hate to see deer lost, any deer..but Sh#T happens ....any one feel he lived??????

I agree with MM, dead as a stone somewhere. Sounds like a liver hit, as he said. IMO, the way you did it was ok. Depending on how far it went each time it was bumped, pushing it may have worked. Also, 30 feet I believe is too high for the reasons MM and you said. But since it got away, the experts would second guess the method you used. Like you said, sh#t happens....WF

i dont think he lived..if that was me...i woulda waited til last minute, knowing me i woulda been up all night so i could know when as it maybe just started to rain and look that way in the rain.. and if i jumped it once, i woulda backed out the first time. and marked that area, and came back at first light.

30ft is to high. i never gone above 18- and alot of the times im below 15..more like 12ft.

Read the rest of the post after my answer. My guess DEAD! But if it makes your buddy feel better tell him its still probably alive. My cousin hit one last archery and never found it, Same deal high in a tree and a bad shot, He actually thought it was a good shot but we seen the buck 2 or 3 weeks later limping. He took a low shot that would have been great if ground hunting.
 
If he would have left the buck there and not jumped it, probably would have founf it in the AM.

I think they will get that passed soon Mika.

A friend of mine used to raise world class Drathaars (yes, he competed around the world with them).  One of the tests is blood tracking a big game animal.  He would volunteer to run his dogs on preserves to track wounded deer just to get them the exposure.  It was truely something to see.
 
Because a Drathaar is a versitile gun dog -- it points birds, chases rabbits, water retrieves fowl, tracks and kills varmits, and blood tracks big game, they are clued into what they are doing based on what collar they have on.  The big game collar is wide and thick and has a leather tab hanging from it.  The dog is released to look for the wounded game and when it finds it, it actually flips the tab up into its mouth and returns to the hunter.  From the location of the tab, the hunter knows that the dog has found the game.  The dog will then walk at heel, without a leash, and lead the hunter to the game.  When within a certain distance from the big game animal, the dog will lie down to signal that they are close.  At this point the hunter has two options, go to the game himself and dispatch it, while the dog remains in the "down" position or command the dog to "kill" in which case the dog will approach the downed animal and rip its throat out.
 
When these dogs were originally bred on German estates, game was for the table and for the market.  Lost game was lost food or lost revenue.  By training these dogs in this manner, nothing went to wast that was wounded.
 
 

Brother hit on like that about 6 years ago swore he hit it hightoward the back and there was plenty of bright red blood and he was high in a tree i believe like 30 ft we tracked that deer after letting it lay all night.never found it till first sat of rifle season when i killed it on a drive. skinned it out and the broad head was stuck in the leg bone right under the body i think he misjudged where he hit it.

ORIGINAL: DarDys

A friend of mine used to raise world class Drathaars (yes, he competed around the world with them).  One of the tests is blood tracking a big game animal.  He would volunteer to run his dogs on preserves to track wounded deer just to get them the exposure.  It was truely something to see.

Because a Drathaar is a versitile gun dog -- it points birds, chases rabbits, water retrieves fowl, tracks and kills varmits, and blood tracks big game, they are clued into what they are doing based on what collar they have on.  The big game collar is wide and thick and has a leather tab hanging from it.  The dog is released to look for the wounded game and when it finds it, it actually flips the tab up into its mouth and returns to the hunter.  From the location of the tab, the hunter knows that the dog has found the game.  The dog will then walk at heel, without a leash, and lead the hunter to the game.  When within a certain distance from the big game animal, the dog will lie down to signal that they are close.  At this point the hunter has two options, go to the game himself and dispatch it, while the dog remains in the "down" position or command the dog to "kill" in which case the dog will approach the downed animal and rip its throat out.

When these dogs were originally bred on German estates, game was for the table and for the market.  Lost game was lost food or lost revenue.  By training these dogs in this manner, nothing went to wast that was wounded.

 
Would be awesome to watch those dogs work....

A deer that stops and stands or lays down in 40 yards is hit in the paunch.  The arrow may have caught a lung but that bolt ended up thru the guts.  Deer do not live long with a liver hit.  You have to let that deer lay down until morning.  Been there and done that.  Hit a deer that way early this year during archery season.  Watched that deer stand still for over and hour until a kid boo booping thru the woods spooked her.  I just let her go since I kewn the area she was running towards.  The next morning I found her 80 yards away.  Took a little while but I was familar with which way deer run when spooked.  Only decision to start early would be if the weather was so warm it forced me to speed up my search.