Hindsight is always 20/20. You found the buck. Congratulations! That is a super nice deer. You would be even more upset if you had pressed on and jumped a gut shot deer and never found him. You never know, the situation is different every time. The way I would look at it is you found a super nice buck for a young man that is going to hopefully be proud of it. He learned allot and hopefully will continue to be an avid hunter. It is a shame the meat was lost but unfortunately that can happen.
