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I am by no means an expert at the will-breaking stalk, but I watched my father pull it off more than once, and I've had some success with it as well. We too have lost them in heavy traffic areas, which can happen to anyone on any stalk, but here is what I would consider to be "the trick" when using this approach.
The animal you're stalking shouldn't view you as "stalking" him. You should just keep appearingwithan unthreatening demeanor. You just happen to be traveling the same route as he.
The first time I witnessed this style of hunt I was way too young (to be walking all day) and didn't really enjoy it, but learned a lot from it. I'm guessing I was around seven years old. My father and I followed a nice buck from sun up, to almost sun down when we'd approached a field that the buck had started to cross. There was a low area in the middle which the buck has started down. My father propped up a broken/rotted limb over a fallen tree trunk. He then instructed me to break the branch and walk back into the woods, away from the buck when he gave me the signal. We had made eye contact with this buck probably twenty times that day, and never took a shot. I was very tired and in low spirits and didn't have any reason to believe this time was going to be any different. Anyway, with my father behind a large tree, ready to shoot, we waited until the buck started making his way up the other side of the hill across the field. Once we could see him, my father gave me the signal. I stomped on the branch, which made the buck look back at me/us, and then I started walking directly away from the buck, back into the woods, which we some what open woods. After I'd walked for a while I stopped and looked back at my father. He was giving me the "you'd better keep on walking if you know what's good for you look". So I kept walking. Soon a shot rang out. I couldn't believe it. I know my dad, and he only takes good shots.
After making my way back I learned that when this buck heard the branch he looked back at me, and when he saw me leaving, he started to follow me! He made his way back down through the low area up to the top of the first hill where my father was able to take him.
We have a few opinions as to why he started to follow me. The first is that he simple wasn't following me, or all that interested in me, but wanted to return to the area thathe'd come from. Or perhaps there was a bigger threat up ahead that we were not aware of. Maybe he did want to get a closer look atwho had been following him. I'm not sure, but I do know that he was at least used to us enough, to not be spooked enough to not want to go back into a set of woods that we had just followed him through.
When I was older I used this method, mainly because there was a light snow on the ground, just as there was in the above story and there was a nice set of tracks going through some scrapes that belonged to a buck I was hunting. I followed him for about three hours. Every time he'd see me (that I was aware of) I would act as if I were just walking and looking around. I didn't see any point in pretending I wasn't there, or hide, because he knew. We ended up making a big circle and coming right back to where we'd started. About a half hour after that he was in a field that he and some other feed in at night, and stopped to watch me. I started walking at about 45 degrees from him, like I was going somewhere else. He stood in the field and watched me walk right through the grass. I was getting closer and closer even though I wasn't walking directly towards him. After I got to with in around 150 yards I simply raised the rifle, turned and shot in one motion.
If you try this, I'd recommend bringing a good size pack with a lot of supplies. Even though you will be doing a lot of walking, you probably don't want to find yourself in a bad situation with out some bare necessities. You'll need to eat, probably sleep. You'll need to change your clothes if they become wet from sweating or crossing wet areas and so on. You may end up needing shelter, or even get hurt and you'll be alone. The pack will get heavy, but if you plan to spend the night outside you'll probably have a better attitude about carrying it.