>>2482729A shotgun for western hunting? Do you have any idea how huge the lines of sight are?
>>2481894Opie, you're going to want a regular ass rifle caliber rifle with a scope starting out, unless you want to begin with waterfowl.
.22s are good for starting with small game, but if you want to start out going after deer and such then it's inadequate. Still, if you're new to guns completely I would start here, they can be pretty inexpensive and most importantly they are very cheap to train with.
If you want to hunt big game, I would start with figuring out *what* exactly you want to hunt. SW hunters can hunt a lot more *species* than Eastern hunters, but are limited by much tighter restrictions on when they can hunt and how many animals they can kill. Tag limits are much smaller. In some Western states everybody doesn't always get to hunt every legal species each year, there are a limited number of tags to go around each year.
Overall, in western hunting, there are fewer hunters and fewer animals spread across a much larger space than in eastern hunting. You will also probably be doing everything on public land.
Do bear in mind that you are massively outnumbered by Eastern hunters who will have *very* little in common with you. Hunting whitetail from a treestand in the Carolinas or Michigan is *nothing* like stalking a Mule deer through canyons and mountain valleys. That's not to say it doesn't require skill and knowledge, but it's a totally different activity. So when you look up or ask questions, make sure to focus on sources that are experienced in hunting the species you're after in a similar environment to you.
Rokslide Forum is heavily geared toward western hunting and that's a great place to look for or ask for info.
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