A friend of mine - at the same time I bought the 30.06 bought a 270 because he thought he was a good shot. I highly recommended that he buy the 30.06 but his mind was made up.
First day out both of us with our new guns - he ass-shoots a deer and we spend the entire rest of the day tracking this thing and never found it.
my junk is ugly
It can happen. I shot a Bobcat once with a 30-30 and it ran almost 75 yards with its lungs gone. The instinct to survive is amazing.
We get bobcats occasionally in our yard. PA bobcats, they're not that big but I've never hunted them.
It was an experience with this deer. We'd track it for an hour, there was snow and we'd follow the drip until it got thin then there was a huge pool of blood, probably from where it got down until we caught up to it.
Never found it, it was frustrating.
my junk is ugly
Yea, it's best to just let them lie. It's hard to stop when your adrenaline is up though.