Usually it's pretty hard to find the deer higher up in C4 late unless you have a honey hole.The deer seem to migrate down into the thick timber just up from the oaks and hold there until it rains. That's not what always happens, but happens allot. There are a few waves of deer that migrate down. Sometimes the first wave goes down all the way to the bottom of the foothills fairly early compared to the others. I have heard of some hunters hunting up fairly high during the late season and finding bucks, but it seems to be allot harder. Several years ago some guys got lucky up by hat creek, road hunting late and killed two great bucks during a rain storm. So luck has allot to do with it. If I remember right they had their picture in the California hunting digest. Also if you hunt the brush patches in the lower country, a good deer dog helps tremendously. If no dog someone needs to play dog and fight their way through them to drive the deer out. My dad and I walked up to another hunter one year who had just passed a brush patch about 10-15 yards around. He said he threw a bunch of rocks in it and nothing came out. My dad decided to claw his way through it and out came a fat fork horn. We shot him as the guy watched in disbelief. Not saying there's a buck in every patch, but you never know where you might find one.