UncleBubba

Since you are foregoing the practice of hunting out of box stands on food plots, you are a sportsman who will take greater satisfaction out of your harvest than your electric sock wearing counterpart. You should be proud that your method requires skill, knowledge...and a little luck. Keep at it and I am sure it will pay off.
I, personally hunt individual deer. It may take all season or longer, but I learn the habits, and concentrate on the one deer that has clued me to his existance by an impressive hoof print in a scrape or his particular cruelty to saplings on a grassy knoll. I concentrate on the days following a rain. Rain resets the "activity clock" for hunting. If it stopped raining at daylight, and you check a scrape at 2:00pm and the buck you are persuing has not tended the scrape then assume he checks his scrapes in the afternoon or night. Hunt until dark at a visable distance of the scrape, as far away as you get. If you do not see him, and feel confident you diddn't alert him. he may check that scrape at night...you get the picture. Now, it may take more that one weather front pushing rain to peg his routune because your buck may only check his scrapes every few days but, It is my experience that the dominate buck in the area will tend his scrapes more agressively out of frustration with younger bucks trying to pork his does.
I use a Primos Rubberneck grunt call imitating a young buck(YB) when I feel the buck is within earshot. But, calling and attractants should be used with caution. If you teach a buck that humans can smell and speak their language he will stop communicating and most likely die of old age.
I don't kill the number of deer that plot hunters kill. I hunt WMA land and very often deal with inconsiderate hunters, but I never get tired of hunting....