I have been hunting for 70 years, starting in the South when deer were scarce and you used a sawdust pile or a board nailed in a tree for a stand. At that time most of our deer hunting was done on public or leased property and permanent stands were generally not allowed. In the early 60's I made the first of many trips to the Mountain West, for antelope, deer (wt and mule) as well as elk. Most were on public land using horses etc to access the hunting area. Prior to those trips I had never shot at an animal from a prone position. The Boy Scouts in those days did use mats to teach shooting prone or sitting..Given the terrain we had to cover on foot after the ride in, I used prone a lot. We also used back packs , saddle blankets, jackets etc to shoot from. I even killed a nice whitetail using my guides shoulder as a rest. In the 70's I moved to Lousiana and since that time have done the majority of my deer hunting in South and West Texas on private leases.. There, 90% of hunters use box stands ranging from converted porta potties to shooting houses with AC, heat, tvs , wireless service and a huge array of shootng rests and aids. My opinion, shared by many others , I s that if your shots exceed 175 yds you need a two point rest and very good glass to hit deer size game consistently. While parts of Texas produce large body deer., the Hill Country deer I hunt have live weights that rarely excced 150 lbs. We do have large feral hogs, Aoudad, Axis and Fallow on our current low fence lease.
IMO if you want to be a sucessfull hunter in all types of terrain with multiple target species do your home work, talk to the guides etc. get there input and practice a lot at the ranges you will be shooting and using the types of techniques suggested. Know where your gun shoots and learn to pay attention to the wind and understand its effect. Hundreds of rounds from a bench certainly help, but it's of little comfort when that trophy of a lifetime is 200 yds, cross canyon, with a 20 mile cross wind and you lying behind a rock with your jacket on it as your only viable rest.
Whether you shoot a metallic cartridge gun or a muzzle loader, the basics are the same. For me, I gave my kids all my centrrfires 20 years back and do all my hunting with my 3 Knight Disc Extreme 50's, with bare primer breech plugs and Moutanier style bolts. After trying most, but not all, of the powder choces over the years, I use BH 209 exclusively. Keep um clean and find the components that work best in your gun as I have and you will have an accurate and deadly gun and most importantly you will have a ball doing it.