Well you are out there on it by now J7. Hope it works out for you. Btw pretty cool that the wife was willing to hump around in the dark and help you look last night.
I was going to say bring a bear tag with you. Two years ago one of my partners had the same thing happen. He went back the next morning and found a bear on his deer. He could see thru the binos that the deer was about empty. He shot the bear (in ID you can use your deer tag as a bear tag).