Rich - I never use trail cams and search my properties, the old school ways-think targeting  one is fun and makes the hunt  for me.
Looking for large rubs in late winter before foliage hides them, look to see if smaller rubs were in the same area the year before, look for a nearby summer feeding area and scout in with the least intrusion  basically using field glasses from afar and watching horn growth and looking for the donkey lol.
 Locate bedding and travel routs and set up a couple of large ground blinds ( over head high with cover) very early along a couple of those routes near bedding.
Remembering that as the rut comes on he may travel far from home so not to get too itchy and just shoot anything.
Often have taken HIM very late season after second rut when he comes back home.
Some years will pass without HIM and some will take an eater elsewhere- something have a couple of shooters on different places and score twice in different seasons ( we can get up to 14 permits- several for bucks)
Its beyond a sport but is a lifestyle-  starting to get to the point -age and ability where  really gotta cut back --ahhh the memories  lol.
Think we are similar predtors in slightly different ways- more in common than not.
Might be the Native American in both of us.

Rg. We totally have different hunting habitats. There are no glassing fields,
its all stalking in hardwoods.
Glassing means to me early, late hunting unless you set an all day stand in their beds to spend a full day afield in hopes they pass through in the times of to and form. Mostly to is after dark, from is before we even roll out if bed.
I'm hunting mountain deer. They travel miles with no fields to graze.
Cameras are key and may not necessarily be old school but because we spend countless hours in the woods, not nmahogany ridge they are only a tool to help us identify what's happening when I'm not there. Our place is 90 miles away, kinda like owning property in Richland x 2. I wouldn't not have that tool to use today.
My deer was on camera a mile away from its demise, because summer, fall, rut pattern changed.

One of my places here in Ct is 60 away and another 45-worth it for biguns lol.
 
Used to have 850 ac right out my back door- all pvt with few if anyone else there legal- all mountain deer.
Thats when ridge walking was best-walk the top and go peek down or have a natural blind over known bedding areas- generally in tight hemlock or cedar groves on the small hillside flats.
When ya stayed above them breeze generally took your  your scent up.
Bedding areas were pretty consistent year to year though and lanes to them were worth a good blind.
Totally different deer that don't go to crops. Move to different food sources-a very different hunt.
Its all great.

I did a 2 hr walk about at 1pm on 2,500 acres of state land for wabbits.
My boys had other commitments so I was solo .
My count . 6 wabbits, 1 shoot and miss. 1 grouse, 1 pheasant.
Wabbit sign everywhere.

Had a flock of Turkey and two flatheads in front of me late yesterday-passed on the flats.
With rain forecast Mon and Tues later today is my last hunt for the year.
Wont pass lol.

Rich,you saw a pheasant?That is a extinct species in my neck of the woods,used to be very common but they dis appeared 10+ yrs ago,the change in farming wiped them out!

Zip tonight-
Close neighbor musta got a new semi and LOTS of clips and rounds.
Started bout 3 and hardly stopped till after shooting time.
That could be the reason orrrrr maybe I gotta get a new place to hunt lol.

Jack. Our dec conservation stocks ditch chickens ( pheasant) as we call them every October for youth hunting, to me a feel good thing by the state, on this 2-4 thousand acres management property a mile from my house. Very rarely do the young partake and you wouldn't catch me in there while big game is on. It is however prime game territory, thickets, fields and hillsides. Fantastic small game after the buck buster public clears out .
By then though the birds are toast, hit by cars or easy prey for yotes because they just strut along clueless, ditch chickens they are.

Rich,same here and "ditch chickens" is a good name for them.The state stocks them here also,but they don't count as I remember the "wild" birds and there is no comparison!Another reason I don't hunt any more.

I actually saw a pheasant in the back a few days ago and dad said he saw 2 in the back lot. I wonder if they " stocked " some in the state forest a few miles from me