Beautiful buck and great write up. Thanks for sharing!
If you ever find yourself solo and you're trying to take a field picture, one thing I've done that has worked pretty well is just propping my cell phone up on a branch/brushpile/bush/grass clump etc and putting it on 'video' with whatever you're trying to capture in the frame. Let it start rolling, walk into the frame, grip n' grin, and then turn video off. You can then take a screen grab from the video footage. Photo quality isn't the best, but at least it's something! Don't mean to give unsolicited advice, seems like you're doing just fine, just a little trick I've had success with while hunting solo.
