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[VerdantSF]

My current fort is at 10 years and going strong.  Small potatoes for most of you, I'm sure, but it's a personal best for me.  Most of my forts suffer from some sort of calamity at around year 4 or 5.  My fort has flux, but no metals, so I rely heavily on trade.  So far, I've relied on an underground tunnel system to get caravans and migrants underground quickly.  I'd like to be even more proactive. 

Now that I've finally figured out the patrol route system, I'm considering sending out a patrol force every season to scour the map.  I'm hoping to trigger/uncover ambush parties well in advance of the caravans.  Does anyone else routinely do this?  Any tips?  I have 15 steel dwarves, including 3 legendaries.   

[BoredVirulence]

My experience with melee dwarves in the open is bad. I would suggest watch towers connected to your fort.
Perhaps do both.

[billw]

Alternatively simply chain animals at 20 square intervals all over the map. They will trigger ambushes (I am pretty sure, I have used this technique before and it seemed to work). Then you can just go out to kill the aggressers.
But yeah patrols is a more fun way to go. You can set them to patrol automatically at the right time using the military schedule (something that just occurred to me while I read your post and lamented about the fact that I always mean to patrol but always forget).

[Magistrum]

Like billw said, its is better to chain animals around the map.If you want to make a really effetive system, you can to the following:
create a acher tower (crossbow tower?) every 30 blocks (you can change this also, the better use of the dwarves range is 40) and put an carnivore animal trained for hunting inside a bulding of 1x1x1 space inside, made out of Windows. put one of these each 15-25 squares for spoting ambushes and you're done!