When I was much younger, one of the local guys always killed a pretty big mule deer buck every year, when most killed small to average bucks in the same local mountains.
Turned out his "secret" was to wait until the rut got going, then hike into areas where he knew lots of does lived--after enough snow fell to make sneaking up on a rut-dazed buck easier. (Earlier in the season those bucks lived much higher on the same mountains.)
But aside from knowing the seasonal patterns of local deer, he didn't pull the trigger on a smaller buck.
