That does bug me! I feel you owe it to yourself and to the animal to practice at least some before picking up the bow and going hunting. At least a few arrows, just to verify! I want to have 100% confidence in myself and my equipment before hunting.
Wish I could offer some help, but I'm puzzled myself. Did he see where the arrow hit or just feels that it was a good shot? Was there much hair or just what you found the skin attached to? The lack of any blood and no arrow has me wondering the arrow may have been buried it the shoulder itself?
My cams have the IR flash and I don't think it bothers the deer at all.
At least for the area that I'm in, scrapes have not been touched in a week now. Scrapes were hot, then in the past week, no scrape action at all. VERY odd for this time of year.
Just today, I saw a buck and 4 does in someones yard at 1:11pm. Later, I saw a buck standing in a field right next to a doe at 2:20. My mother said she saw a big buck crossing a field by her house at 10am, nose to the ground and it never stopped. It's starting!!
As of this morning, I've been in the stands for 43hrs (14 hunts) and have only seen 2 deer (both small bucks) during shooting light! Talk about frustrating!! Things will turn around!
My bow is ~12 years old. It shoots great. Every year, it kills deer just as dead as a new bow would! With a wife, kids, bills, etc... I just can't justify spending the big $$$ on a new bow. I have NO complaints with my bow...
Scrapes around my place opened up early this year. I have a couple of cams set up watching scrapes. There has been NO scrape activity in the past week! The scrapes that were active have gone cold. They haven't even paid attention to my mock scrapes in the past week.
I've been out for 12 more hours in the past 2 days and only saw 1 deer. It came by before it was light enough to tell if it was a small buck or a doe.
Frustrating...