Otherwise, I just try to hunt the does, morning, noon, or night.
I don't hunt much before 10/28 so most of my hunts are all day.
If you're in Farm country you can get a friend to move deer off naturally with a tractor or truck while you slip in and out...it will get you in and out a.m. or p.m.
I hear lots of talk about stands with foolproof entry and exit....but I've never seen one. If you can get in and out every time with zero risk of spooking a deer, or having one smell residual scent after you leave, you aren't hunting around many deer. Use your head, but sometimes you have to roll the dice.
Not to be a jerk, but I look for places where the deer will be in the morning or the afternoon :) Like elk hunting (I know you've done quite a bit), you look for the animals in different areas at the different times of day. Generally, non-rutting whitetails are heading to bed in the morning, and leaving bed in the afternoon.
Rutting whitetails are different, and my situation is different. I hunt a large stand of hardwood timber, where deer can essentially bed anywhere they want. And they do. Anywhere they feel safe.
So, essentially, I look for areas where bucks cruise. Sometimes these areas are from bedding to bedding, feed to bedding, vice versa, etc. Sometimes I'm not really sure why they're using that area, but I know they do. In the large timber setting, it's all dictated by topography and inner edge (hardwoods meet softwoods, old skidder trails, old fencelines from 50 years ago, etc.).
I have a few areas that I KNOW mature bucks cruise frequently during the rut, and I really don't know why, but they use it to get from point A to B for some reason, or to skirt an area they want to scent check or something. And it's a concrete reason, because different bucks do it year after year. I think too much, so at some point, I quit worrying about the why, and just hang and hunt.
Early season, when I just have to be in the woods, I generally don't hunt mornings, and just hunt PM stands near food sources on the fringes. I've NEVER killed an early buck. I've never been able to pinpoint a concentrated food source early with any reliability. Usually, once the first few big old white oaks start dropping, it's anybody's guess where bucks will be on any given evening.
Once November hits, then I forget about food, and go to my cruising stands. They're generally either close to, or between preferred bedding regions.
Don't trust me too much though, I put in WAY too many hours on stand for usually very little reward :)
Bake