I learned quite a bit about a certain buck that I've filmed two summers ago and trail camera since he was3.5...hes at least5.5 now...last Sat while heading into a ground blind with my recurve in hand..I finally saw him/bumped intohim on his feet moviing down a mountain towards some doe family groups in the bottoms..he was on a mission, moving head down on a trot.....I luckily was standing in the ONLY snow (3 inches) we've hadthis entire months ofNOV and it was gone the next day...anyway when Isaw him and instead of chasing him with a bow in my hand.. NOT gonna work cause he saw me..I didnt push him and watched him fade into the timber down the ridge and I immediately go on his track like a hound dog andback tracked hisfootsteps way up a ridge, out through a nasty cedar thicket full of blow downs and found 5 different bedding spots.. rubs everywhere and of course the perfect thermals/windsl for him to lay up in there all day and pick up anything coming up the mountain to him and to his backside...a ton of brush and blow downs making a wall for any hunter to ever try to sneak in on him from above.. No wonder I havent seen this buck on the hoof in two years and only inSeveraltrail cam pix in the DRY summers when his only water source forces him tocome to it..helives in one ofthe almost unhuntable hideouts up in that big northern thick timbered mountainside I have ever tried to tackle..

OBTW, hes looks awesome... in hard antler hes got the really dark almost black antlers.. I found one area an inside edge betweened the old logged timber, the clearcut and the ceder thicket that his tracks passed through that makes like flat bench..saddle sort of all in one..IbelieveI can ambush him in thereif we get cold enough temps to force him to get up andfeed before dark. I wont be able to huntbut the very lasthours of daylight right when the evening thermalschange and go downslope..I will have to approach once that wind switches or if I get a southwest wind..since hes in a northern face...He likes to feed in an old clearcut about 200 yards from his thicket. He did a lot two years ago when he was much more visible than he lets himself be now, and from the tracks and trail cams I have up in there he still does just later at night.. I expect him to shed his antlersup in there as well.

on last thing.. that ground blind I was headed into .... well once I bumped the big boy and was able to back track exact path..... I could see how hes been sidehilling below my ground blind enough that over the past two seasons or at least this one, he could have walked by me many a time with me never knowing.. I also dont mind invading his bedding area like I did last Saturday, he had a lot on his mind.. horomones.. He will back to this area again I can almost gaurantee it. Hes a heck of a nice big main framed 5x5 with a little kicker on his brow..