I have had great success mountian hunting in the last several years. My best advice is scout and scout more. I start in Jan. after hunting season is finished and hike the mountains. I'll hike new areas and areas where I've heard about big deer. I always have my GPS with me marking trail direction and beds. Im always looking for pinch points and areas where multiple trails come together. I find it best to scout when there is at least 4 to 6 weeks of snow on the ground following hunting season. It much easier to scout when snow is on the ground. Where you find the deer this time of the season is where you will find the deer when they are pressured. I also use Google Earth quite a bit for scouting, its a great tool. My goal every year is to find another new stand or two to hunt. After scoutning, all your trail and bed information can be transfered to Google Earth. This gives a great over view of the area that you've just scouted. Once I've found new spots I'll go back in early summer and place trail cameras near these new spots and see if there is anything worthwhile hunting. Trail cameras are great tools if you dont over use them in you best hunting areas. I have 8 of them. One word of note, over the last several years of trail camera pictures in mountain areas and swamps I have never been able to pattern any large buck. Wait for the rut. I say this because in my area its almost a waste of time to hunt before the rut. Over the last several years I have not seen one nice buck before the rut. Once the rut starts I'll hunt non-stop in my best spots and hunt them only if the wind is right. I know this only skims the surface, but I hope this helps a little.