Thank you for your story. There is a frustration/humility that goes with a hard luck hunt and how we respond to that frustration makes the future successful hunts all the more sweeter. Keep going forward and learn from the past.
If your a new hunter is your expectation to harvest a buck to eat or a rack to brag about on the internet. The learning is in the journey and the danger of setting too high of an expectation is that it maybe difficult to achieve and even harder to surpass. I am not sure if the regulations...
The weather is starting to turn from fall to winter in around the Merritt area. The spots up high where you saw deer may start to be empty. Depending on the hunting pressure and there is a lot of hunting pressure around Merritt in October the bucks you have seen will be pushed around or killed...