OGW, I agree that your post was a good read.

Sometimes though, I wonder about these big old mature bucks. Most folks seem to think they got old because they were "smart", that they "learned" how to do what they do, by repeated human contact. That negative human experience has taught them these things. Could it be that the opposite is actually true, and they were the naturally skittish ones to begin with, the "outcasts" and it was this trait that allowed them to survive, when their peers around them were killed off? Kind of a chicken and the egg debate, and ultimately unprovable in any case, but it is good food for thought. In all reality it is probably a combination of the two factors, that varies with each individual.