This. There's no right answer. At least your nephew got the antlers from his first buck... and learned something about deer behavior in the process. Coulda been worse.
If I know I hit a deer and it runs far enough that I don't hear it crash, I wait an hour and then search until I find it dead or bump it. Haven't run into one alive yet, but I'm sure I would if I didn't wait. Had one run like a lightning bolt straight into Texas mesquite and black brush. Waited an hour. The blood trail was very light but consistent, individual drops on leaves. A few small bone splinters at POI. Crawled through thorns for 25 minutes. Found it piled up after hemorraging on a cactus. Looked like Halloween II. The damn thing literally had no heart and not much lung left, the interbond had shattered the shoulder and spewed out bone chips. But still made it 60 yards leaving miniscule blood. Moral of the story: you never can tell based on the jump or the blood. Common logic would've said bone and little blood was a front leg hit and a long gone deer...
