Two years ago I had a similar situation on a doe at about 20 yards that I got a shot at as I walked in to my afternoon stand. The shot felt and sounded good. After waiting about an hour before tracking, we started to pick up the trail with plenty of blood at first. Found the arrow maybe 30 yards into the track broken in half... only the back half, with the front presumably in the deer. However, not a whole lot of blood on the back part, so I am assuming it did not get enough penetration, and I probably hit her in the shoulder. I tracked probably 200 yards total, but the blood dried out and a grid search produced nothing. I truly believe that deer lived. I have seen some wounded deer that had fairly nasty scars, but were definitely surviving! Nothing I wrote here is to tell you you should give up the search- quite the opposite! As everyone encouraged, look some more and see what turns up, especially with all that blood he dropped. I was just sharing a similar story and the outcome that happened for me.

On the topic of shoulder shots with rifles- I hunt with a .30-06. I have never seen a deer hit in the shoulder blades that did not drop at the site of impact. There was an article about shoulder shots in some hunting magazine last year, I thought it was an interesting article. With the power that such a rifle produces, if you can break the scapula, it will drop right there. I usually shoot for the lungs because it wastes less meat, but I will take a shoulder shot if that is all I have, or if it is a nice buck where I am willing to give up a roast or two to make a sure kill. All my shoulder shots have passed through and dropped the deer in their tracks.

Best of luck finding your deer, let us know the outcome!

Jon