I' m with the others here... Why not trail the deer? It' s not like the blood and other sign is just going to majically disappear. It takes a fair amount of time before that happens and it sounds like you had a pretty solid hit so he shouldn' t be far. Additionally, when a deer is hit solid it will always take the path of least resistence.

Leaving the woods without looking harder was your only mistake.

The buck I shot last year (a nice basket 8 point) was hit just before dark and it was raining. If I' d have walked out of the woods I' d have never found him.