Eight point buck and mate

On Thanksgiving day, in a narrow thicket behind my home, we saw an eight point buck and his mate who seemed to be delaying their journey for some reason. They nibbled a little, the lay down some and rested, and nothing seemed to disturb them---comes with age I suppose.
Now deer aren't uncommon around homes here, but eight point bucks and very mature mates together are! They usually do not make it that many years of age.

I thought they wanted to eat my shrubbery so I casually wandered out to them thinking they would scatter. They did not, nor seem to want to do so! I could get within 10-15 feet before they would casually move a few feet, seeming to say with their motions, why are you bothering me.

Having not run across such behaviour with young deer, I was at first mystified--thinking maybe one of them was ill. But when they both got up and moved around, I thought not.

Then I thought they weren't idiots, that their instinct told them that after dark I would disappear and the
shrubbery would be theirs.

But no, I got my lantern and went back out after dark and found the shrubbery undisturbed and the deer gone.
An odd looking vine in a tree had been stripped a little but that was all.

Then it dawned upon me, these folks were hiding from the hunters. It is deer season and they know it.
They were delaying their trek until dark when they seemed to know they would'd hear the dreaded booms.

I hope the old boy and his mate are coy enough to make it until spring or that they aren't the cause of an auto's destruction!

I really don't know where they will go however. Safety in the woods where there is food for all has just about disappeared