Not a drop of blood...

A man clinched his trembling hands around his model 700 wondering what had just happened. He had been slipping along the wet forest floor. The rain forest of Oregon is covered in moss, clover, mushrooms, and fern over the top of a black soil that has the consistency of wet coffee grounds. With every step you sink inches into the spongy floor. His steps were absolutely noiseless, his movement swift and steady when he spied the contrast of a  cream-colored body of an elusive Roosevelt bull elk against the green background. The massive bull was crowned with deep-orange, heavy antlers.

The man steadied his rifle and fired at the bull. The bull exploded through the timber heading towards a hidden canyon rarely visited by anyone besides the most hardcore of all elk hunters. I was called that night and after hearing the story of searching hard and not able to recover the bull I thought the best thing would be to first check his point of impact on his rifle in the morning in case some previous mishap had jarred the scope. An off-scope could give better clues as to where he'd hit the bull, or if he hit it at all. Then we would go and track the bull.

Morning came and his rifle shot fine. We hiked into the canyon and after hours of playing different scenarios and following tracks and trails, we found this on the tree directly behind where the elk had stood:  

Although there were some very small elk hair clippings around the bullet hole, we realized the energy used to penetrate 5" into this tree (we  tried to recover the 160 Accubond but it  was deeper in the tree than our knife blades could reach) made it very clear this bull was barely grazed by the bullet. We confirmed this with replaying the scenario, the angles and positions of the hunter and the elk. The shot was high. There may not have been any blood shed in the canyon, but I assure you there were sweat and tears as we quietly inched our way back to the top of the canyon.