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First legalities and safety. Looking at New York hunting regs it appears you will need a hunter safety or education course before you can get a hunting license which gives you a good basic education in firearms handling and hunting in general. Never get complacent about that muzzle discipline or trigger discipline. Always remember and follow those rules no matter how carelessly you see those around you doing things. In fact if you see repeated gun handling mistakes in your hunting group don’t go hunting with them. I’ve done this on more than one occasion when a member of a hunting camp was using alcohol when handling firearms or when a hunting “buddy” would repeatedly sweep my head with his muzzle when walking in the woods or back at camp. Also from personal experience, if you do not know and trust the gun handling practices of ALL of those participating in a deer drive you should probably decline the invitation. Some of the closest calls have ever had is when I did not follow that advice. Took bullets cracking past my head to drive the point home but I got the message. As an interesting note: the shots were fired by somebody’s grandpa with his Remington 7400 30-06. Grandpa had evidently been sipping wild turkey whiskey to “keep warm” and must have thought I was a 2 legged deer dressed in a blaze orange coveralls carrying a rifle. This supposedly seasoned (more pickled actually) hunter emptied his gun at me as I was coming out of the woods. Scared the crap out of me and I was much more careful about who I hunted with after that. Things seem to be MUCH better these days and I’ll bet your hunting partners follow the rules. Those that don’t are more the exception than the rule these days.

On to firearms for deer. Hopefully a few of your hunting buddies will be kind enough to let you shoot their rifles a time or two to see if there is one of them you particularly like or don’t like. As a general rule for younger hunters I prefer a nice light recoiling cartridge like a .270. This allows for a bit more concentration on things like trigger, sight pictures and bullet placement rather than bracing for recoil. If I were you I would start out with a .270 and then later on if you decide to go with a larger round then step up. Being a good sized guy you should be able handle an adult sized rifle pretty easily. I would look for a good bolt action from a maker such as Winchester, Remington, Savage or Ruger. Get the best quality scope you can afford and by quality I don’t mean magnification. A nice fixed rage 4 or 6x would be more than adequate. If you really think you want a variable go with a 3x9. Stay away from cheap scopes like the plague. Iron sights are better than a cheap scope in my opinion.

Once you get the rifle and get the scope mounted head for the local range with several boxes of ammo to get everything sighted in and find out which loads and brands work best with your rifle. Once you get it sighted in make sure you practice as often as you can afford to. Not just off the bench either. Use those stances you will use when hunting. Helps to wear your hunting clothes too. Those heavy jackets can make a big difference as far as mounting the rifle to your shoulder or scope eye relief.

In a lot of ways I envy you. You are just starting off on a grand hunting adventure. Don’t get frustrated or discouraged by some of the roadblocks and obstacles that will come up. There are seasons when nothing goes right and there will be times when you either can’t find a place to hunt or all of your hunting buddies have gone or given up the sport. It is all worth it in the end. Those crisp mornings in the woods with a rifle in your hands make it all worth while. You are breed apart my friend. You are out wandering around in the woods in the snow when others are sitting in front of the TV or blind drunk in a bar. Those people never know the peace that one feels sitting on a fallen tree listening to the snow fall, watching the birds and other animals. They will also never know what we feel when after many hard days, weeks and months of scouting we manage to fulfill our place in nature and kill a beast like a deer or turkey. They will never know the exhilaration of a covey of quail bursting to flight under your feet. They will never know the tingle we get up our spines in the fall as we hear a flock of geese heading south. Oh, there are some that might watch nature on TV or go to an over crowded prepackaged park and watch animals and admire nature but they aren’t really a part of it. They can’t feel it like we do. They are but observers – we are participants. We are a part of it and it is a part of us.

Anyway, get a good bolt action 270 and prepare for a lifetime of fun and challenges. There is nothing else like it.

Nothing I like better than going hunting with a new hunter and watching them experience what I have. Lets me relive those times all over again. Sometimes I think it is almost more enjoyable the second time. If any of you older guys are getting bored or burned out on hunting or if in many ways it has become more of chore or competition to see who get the biggest rack just take a kid or newcomer hunting. Passing on what you have learned and seeing the woods and nature through the eyes of a youngster is a hell of a lot more rewarding than a 12 pointer on the wall. Today that is more important than ever.