I hunted hard in 80* heat and chased rumors of bucks sighted, killed here, etc. Only good buck i saw was a nice wide buck day b4 season that i believe was killed about a mile away 3 days later. I finally backpacked in 5 miles with 3 days remaining and ran into a group of three that had been hunting area i planned to hunt. They killed only a 160 class buck and saw no other shooters.
I went the opposite way those guys had been hunting where i had found small water seep in aspen patch near timber/north face. Saw several smaller bucks that am as i walked top. I crashed through headhigh brush towards bottom and jumped up a BIG buck. I got to his bed and prepared to skirt edge of aspen and open meadow, below brushy hillside.
About 5 minutes later he circled back around, headed to his same bed. I was there and watched him from about 100 yds, across open grassy meadow, closing distance in early am sunlight with velvet dangling from his bloody antlers. He got within 50 yds and i aimed my new Accura V2 behind his front shoulder and shot. He got uphill and i ran up there to lay eyes on him while i was going to reload but it was not needed. He fell over and took some last breaths and i was pretty amazed at what had occurred.