Quoted By:
Here I wrote this for someone on /k/ earlier this week.
1/4
1/2
If you have a friend that hunts, see if your state has an apprentice hunter program or similar. With a program like that, one can go hunting with someone who has experience for one hunting season, giving them a chance to hunt prior to sitting through the course. Either way, the course is just a pain in the ass and as long as you have the correct number of chromosomes you will be fine.
Once you either are sure of an apprentice hunting rule in your state and have your buddy on board, OR you got your hunters ed course in; figure out what you want to hunt and do a little research to see if there is good hunting for it near you. For example, in my state I can hunt deer literally anywhere, but if I want to go for black bear, the nearest spot that actually has them is about 3 hours away. Honestly, if you are in the US your first big game hunt should be either whitetail deer or mule deer. If you are interested more in small game, you will have to do a little more research on your area.
Buy the required license and if necessary for the species you are targeting, additional tags. Read all of the regs associated with the species you intend on hunting, and follow them to. the. t. If you are going for deer (or many of the other species) there will be seasons, and hopefully you have at least a month or two until you can go hunting. Take a couple weekends of this time to go scouting various patches of gameland/national forest/state forest/ private property (if you have permission).
pic related is some of my recon from this year.