Taken with a Kimber fitted to 7mm WSM at 160 yards shortly after 1 P.M. on our second day of hunting. Walked and glassed the majority of some usually productive spots from 25 mile creek up Slide Ridge, then back down and up the 5900 road over Shady Pass and finished the first day checking mainly for migration density at different elevations along the whole route back down to the Entiat river road. Very little fresh sign laid down since the first push of younger bucks and does during the snow fall towards the end of General season. Saw a few small bucks along the route having staredowns, but the majority of sign indicated most deer were nocturnally working the dark timber. At dusk we saw a mature buck in an area past experience has told me to be a primary migration route for a good percentage of the Slide and Clark Unit deer moving onto the Entiat unit. We couldn't make a kill even though we got up close and personal. The buck really smelled from rutting secreations. The next morning we went back up 5900 and walked out a hidden saddle which broke over and into a 1000 foot slope of unburned old growth with good shooting lanes which was smoking with activity during first snowfall. Nothing showing. The whole ecosystem of wildlife from birds to bears seemed inactive. When I eat dinner I usually leave the best on my plate until last. This was kind of my mind set as we cast into the next hole, hoping to find a kicker fish. We worked into this area for about a mile, then while working our way back out I took some time to tell Tim about a buck fight I saw one year in a pile of blow down just over a finger ridge we were working towards. One buck had slid down through the snow covered blow down and became impaled on a vertical broken branch. As I was about to finish that story, we crested the finger ridge and Tim's 30.5" buck was standing broadside with a doe, ears cocked, looking directly at us, and evidently waiting patiently to hear the rest of my story. End of story.
