Really there is such a diverse state of what I consider "hunting". This is again a great topic Dave, and a good discussion. I have had a lot of "pondering time" here lately.
Honestly I really enjoyed it when I had the opportunity to hunt with Steve Beilgard in Wyoming and wish that was something we could do more often, but ranches of that size simply do not exist here, nor does the terrain here support that type of hunting at least in this part of the state we are in. Spotting and stalking from high ground and using the terrain to our advantage was great, got very close to some real nice elk, but we were there for deer and antelope. While we saw evidence of some nice mulies, I never was able to catch up to that right one. I had gotten into less than a hundred yards from a trophy elk, too bad the deer were not so easy to find in the unusually warm Wyoming October. That style of hunting is so different than here. I mean you can see for miles in the wide open country there and you might have 6 or 8 hunters on a 45,000 acre or larger ranch. Here you simply do not have those types of open country and small mountains to use for vantage points, terrain is such that you may be able to see an open field 3 or 4 hundred yards long and more often you are hunting in much tighter locations than that making spot and stalk style hunting virtually impossible on these swamp whitetails that seem to be extremely wary. You are lucky to have single landowners that have more than a couple hundred acres in most places, more commonly farms are less than a hundred acres and you might have a number of hunters on each of those parcels. I don't know the actual number of hunters within a mile of our farm, but would bet it would be 20 or more not counting those on our 60 acre farm.
The idea that you could go miles and still be on the same parcel in many places out west versus talking in terms of yards here, the opportunities are just not the same. So here you try to position yourself to be in the right place at the right time based on what information you are able to gather. I try to hunt for the best class/oldest deer I know are here, that is where trail cams are critical, I just don't have the ability to sit in 3 or 4 different stands at the same time. Gathering as much pre season intel as I can gives me the knowledge I need in the way of expectations. I can tell you last year was a perfect example for me of luck playing in as a huge factor, and I did a LOT of "waiting" in the stands with hopes the deer I missed in November was even still around. I was very fortunate to have seen the same buck on 3 occasions; passed him up on the first with my muzzleloader scope steady on him with hopes my wife would tag the deer, missed him with my .270 on the second encounter, and managed to kill him third time I saw him with my .270. How he evaded other surrounding hunters was pure luck for me, twice I watched him go off our property to a neighboring farm where there are at least two hunters that hunt near our lines. My wife had also seen the deer, before the first time I saw him but she was unable to get what she felt was an ethical shot. My plans and looking at the conditions the morning I killed him worked out that everything lined up just right to put me in position for the deer to be in front of me again in December. I had planned on hunting anywhere but where I did, but weather conditions/wind when i checked was just not right for those stands. The field I hunted had seen very poor activity last year, and the primary rut was long over, I had to put time into a stand that had shown little promise and get my rear end out of the bed even though my low back had been killing me. Where a lot of guys around us kill pretty well every doe they see I let them walk, turns out that once again it was a late doe cycling in that helped bring me a little luck. Likely a doe I had previously passed on.
Far as using harvest for killing, does not bother me too much. I think that is one of those things that the wildlife folks like to use to tame things down to the non hunters to not be such a turnoff, kinda like the suggestion that you should not ride a deer around in the back of your truck on the tailgate down. I had to kind argue with our warden on that, I get the point, but also the flipside to that is you have some non hunters that may see it and think that is cool and intrigue them. And I share the story of the two old folks(in their late 60's) who gave me a thumbs up and said that is nice at a checking station/gas station back in 2003 when I was checking in an 8 point. To each their own I guess, our deer go field to freezer since TN began allowing us to check in without going to a checking station. If I were to take one in to a checking station though, it would be something to be proud of and would get the ride on the tailgate down and I would check my kill tag.
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