Well, we went 0-3 in filled tags this year. I hunted all 7 days and didn't see a buck for sure, although the last evening I pulled a sneak on some deer and I think one was a buck. A guy on the hill north of us killed a nice buck the first morning.
My buddy saw a buck the second morning but botched the sneak (his second year hunting). We found this skull later in the day, pretty nice buck. We didn't measure it but I'm guessing is was 24-26 inches wide. Next year he would have been a really nice one:
On day 3 we moved up to high country. It's an area with a heavy doe population but finding a buck is tricky. We spent 3 days total up there and saw about 100 does. Zero bucks. Can't say I was surprised but it was a good change of scenery and we bagged 10 squirrels over 3 days. We passed up more than that. Here's a few more, in addition to the one posted above:
I spent the last day back down in the desert. I finally found 4 deer about a mile away with an hour and a half of daylight left. I made the sneak but they kept feeding away from me and up on a ridge. In the time it took me to close the final 500 yards they cut a hard left and when I crested the hill they busted me ~100 yards to my left. I only saw the ass end of one, didn't see it's head. However when I had them at 600 yards, I could tell one of the deer was very big bodied and it was running the others around. I think it was a buck but didn't ever get a great look at it's head. So it goes sometimes. Here's a parting shot of the desert. It's fun to glass but I wish it held more deer:
