Wow Stanleys method is awesome. Never thought to hang a cam for an entire season solely for next years intel. I will have to try that.
As far as the original question goes, let me preface my response with the disclaimer that I'm certainly no Dan or Andrae, but here's my take on this:
RUBS: I'm surprised no one mentioned rubs around the bed. If there are scarred up trees, a buck obviously beds there in hard-horn (which usually overlaps hunting season) and depending on how the trees look, could be a spot that has been a buck bed for years.
TRACKS: Already mentioned... but that's one of the other tell-tale signs I use.
DROPPINGS: I know, sounds crazy right? Hear me out. Deer seem to poop a lot when they first get out of bed and all around where they browse, right? So if there are lot's of really big droppings of various age nearby, I assume that a buck uses the area pretty regularly. Finding big fresh droppings in a nearby food source or even in the staging area during hunting season. He's probably home.
BROWSE: I'm by far no expert on deer nutrition, but here's my take. Most of the hunting season, they eat woody browse, right? So if I see a lot of heavy browsing, I know they probably spend at least mid-fall and/or winter in the area. The rest of the year they don't eat the woody browse and instead munch on leaves and forbs more (as far as I know). Maybe I'm wrong, but that has always helped me narrow down seasonal use of areas.
JUMPING THEM: I had never heard of Andrae DAquisto until maybe the mid to late 90's (I think)... and never heard of any of his techniques until recently when I joined here. Turns out I stumbled on a few of the same general tactics these guys do just because I didn't know any better. By the late 90's I had already bumbled around the woods like a moron for a decade. I had no idea what I was doing, was too stubborn to read up on it and didn't know any people that would teach me. So I would stumble around and eventually into bedding areas and jump deer. I would then figure that was a good spot and either set up and hunt it or come back some other time to hunt it. Killed a lot of deer without knowing any better. Many of them returned the same evening. I gradually learned to use it to locate bucks. I still use it to this day and I'm not afraid of jumping most bucks once even during the season. As long as I don't appear like a threat, it doesn't seem to matter too much. Some don't return, but the majority of them do. Some of them allow you to constantly harass them....as long as it's not in a "threatening manner"....like if they catch you in a stand, or sneaking around, that's a lot more bothersome to them than just taking a "dopey walk" like you're a lost bird-watcher. Might sound stupid, but that's what I've seen over the years.
Now...I'm not hanging the quality of bucks that these guys do, so maybe my advice is deemed worthless. But it's really just my observations from years of taking this sport way too seriously...and if it matters at all, I have done ok for my area over the years. Not the best, not the worst. There are a few guys around this area that are lights out stone cold monster buck killers...I am not one of them. Then again, if I didn't "choke" so much, I'd have a lot more "woods cred". Instead I am haunted by an unfortunate past filled with misses and even worse big wounded bucks.
Anyway, going off topic...Hope some of what I wrote helps.