Thanks for the tips. I actually pretty much arrived at the same conclusions. My hunting buddy asked me what should we do different next year in the early season, and I told him basically what you said (stlhdr1). No more glassing edges for hours on end. Glass first light, last light, and then arrange to push brush out to shooters in the open.

My late season starts on Nov 26 in the 6-5-1, so I hope we will be getting the end of the rut, but it goes through Dec 15th. I have heard that there is a second rut for the does that did not get any. I got a long lecture at a wedding a couple of months back, about how WA has a really poor buck/doe ratio and that there will always be a second rut because there is no way for the bucks to service so many does.