Hi team, I'm back in the saddle and ready to get in the stand more than ever. I just took my family to Monterey, CA for Labor Day weekend and we had a great time and stayed in a lodge by the ocean. What was cool, was along with all the activities Monterey has to offer the blacktail were all around the lodge area and they were in rut. I actually pulled into a parking lot on Sat. at the lodge and got out of the car and there was a doe pawing a scrape and pee'd in it right in front of me.Other does were in the area walking around and bedding down out our window. I got some pictures I'll post this week. The highlight was on Saturday night by the volleyball courts there was a place to have a fire so we did. While we were there we looked across the court and there were 8 does walking quietly. We didn't even hear them and they were 20 yards away. I started walking there way and I heard something to my right in the small funnel of woods and there was a spike jogging to cut the does off. I walked over to a fence that separated the court to the woods to get apicture ofthe spike that had stopped and then the big boy came! He came out of no where running through the woods towards the does. I was only about 10 yards from him and he was definately a mature buck with a high rack...it was awesome!!! Oh man it would have made a perfect bow opportunity if I could have stopped him. I got buck fever after that. We continued so see does here and there but that was the only time I saw that buck. One other cool encounter with a doe was when my family and I were walking on a path to the beach when I saw a doe running down a sand dune to my right heading our direction. My wife was about 20 yards behind me. I yelled at her to look. Sure enough that doe ran and jumped over the path right in between us. If I had my camera I could have had a picture of a doe in the air with my wife in the background on the path. How cool would that have been? Glad to be back, ready to get in the woods.