Thread: How can I shoot more deer, and what's your hit rate?

I've been hunting for a couple of years now and shot a couple of deer early on, a couple dozen goats and a couple of pigs. I've been deer hunting about ten times and come close to dropping a few more (spooked etc). I'm pretty good at finding DOC areas with animals and do a lot of leg and wheel work to get there. I'm pretty motivated but I feel like I've hit a wall so now I'm curious to know if I just got lucky and it's usually this hard, or if there are some things holding me back. I'm keen to hear from pros and rookies about your hit rates. I talked to a guy at Hunting & Fishing who said he'd shot 150 deer in 20 years (public+private), average one deer about every two months so probably every second or third time he goes hunting (assuming the numbers aren't bogus).

So I want to get a feel for roughly...
-How many years and how many times have you hunted?
-How many days hunting per deer when you were getting started and how many now? I've spent close to 20 days for 2 deer, so 10 days per deer on average.
-What changes in your hunting bagged you the most deer? Trying new places, sticking to good places, hunting slower/faster, better bush gear, jumping out of trees...

Keen to hear from everyone!