After a long day of hiking and stalking ridges, sun was on its way down and spotted this buck bedded down way down on a sage covered bench across a coulee between a large dead ponderosa pine and a clump of small douglas fir trees. Daylight was fading quickly, tried to close the distance, was too steep and rocky to try to cut straight across, and had to stay above to be downwind, so went further up and then onto a small ridge looking down, he had his attention on a group of does and a nice wide fork horn down in the coulee, so I moved in to a closer ridge, still 400 yards away, he spotted me and was onto me, he stood up and it was time to make a quick decision...do I continue on and try to stalk him or make the shot?...Ten yards below was a dead and bowed over ponderosa pine sapling, I used it for a rest and scoped him to test the feel...I had no choice but to either take the shot or lose the buck...I aimed the 3x scope crosshairs on top of his shoulders, squeezed the trigger, he walked away, I thought i missed, so I jacked another round...he went into a patch of pine blowdowns...so i waited...ready...then I saw him stagger backwards then flip over backwards, HE WAS DOWN!!! I quickly scaled down the slope and thru the wooded coulee and up the other side onto the flat and looked around, recognized where he was bedded, then the blowdowns to the right and further in, then there he lay, was a mile back down to the truck, I chose to drag him back to the truck whole with daylight fading fast and darkness crept in, was soaked in sweat and was total dark when i saw the comforting sight of the white truck thru the trees, got him in and was headed home...got these pictures taken in the driveway at my Dad's. I dedicate this hunt and fine buck to all veterans who fought for our freedom, so we can continue to do what we love doing best today...