How To Start Hunting
Hunter Safety
Hunter safety is mandatory for new hunters nearly everywhere in North America. You must pass an online or in-person safety course before you are allowed to purchase a hunting license. Some states’ courses only take hours to complete online; others might require an entire day (or more) in the field.
Certified courses will instruct you about hunting ethics, equipment, habitat conservation, firearm safety and handling, hunting laws and regulations, wilderness survival skills, wildlife identification and management, and more. Knowing these things will give you confidence in the field. Find information about hunter safety in your area by searching online or calling your local wildlife agency.
Licenses, Tags, and Permits
Licenses
A hunting license is an annual requirement that says you have the training, legal standing, and ability to hunt in a particular state at particular times for single or multiple species. Generally, they are the foundation of your permission to hunt game and are prerequisites for holding tags and permits. Each state has its own set of regulations released annually. It’s important to check them for what’s required to hunt.
You may be purchasing a rifle hunting license and/or a bowhunting license as a resident or non-resident. Just having a license, however, does not always mean you can hunt any in-season game animal. You’ll likely need a tag too.
Tags
Hunting tags are the physical pieces of paper you attach to an animal after you’ve harvested it. They are specific to each species you hunt. Elk hunters need elk tags. Deer hunters need tags for whitetail or mule deer. Waterfowl hunters need a Federal Duck Stamp. To hold a tag, you must have a valid hunting license.
Some tags you can buy over the counter at a local sporting goods store or online; some you have to draw in a lottery system. Some states offer tags for specific sexes. In Montana, for instance, an “A” tag, or general tag, might allow you to harvest a bull elk or antlered deer, but a “B” tag might allow you to harvest a cow elk or doe.
Permits
Permits work in tandem with tags and hunting licenses, as they give you permission to hunt certain animals in certain districts at certain times. The nomenclature for tags and permits can get confusing at times. Not all states use the same terms the same way. Pennsylvania, for instance, sells permits, not tags, but many Western states use both tags and permits. It’s best to check with your local wildlife management office to understand the proper terms.
Hunting Seasons
Seasons are planned and managed at the state level by wildlife agencies. By limiting the number, sex, and types of species that can be harvested, and when, the state can effectively control an animal’s overall population health.
The timing of most hunting seasons factors in a species’s biology and behavior. Deer season, for example, is generally in the fall and winter and covers the rut, which is when bucks are mating with does. If the hunting season for deer was much earlier, it would interfere with fawn rearing. Fawns are dropped in late spring or early summer and they need time to learn the things they need to know to make it on their own. Also important for deer season is that by fall bucks have grown back the antlers they’ve shed in spring, making them easy to identify their sex.
You’ll see this with turkey season too, which occurs in the spring (in some states, also in the fall). Springtime is when male turkeys (toms) are ready to fertilize eggs, so toms are looking for their hens. Hunters have an advantage here to call in toms by sounding like a hen or like another tom looking to challenge for dominance over a flock.
Waterfowl seasons are usually synced with migration. Each state’s season is timed for when ducks and geese are expected to be passing through on the way to their summer breeding grounds.
There are also different seasons for different weapons. Hunting with a bow (usually a compound bow or traditional bow) most often occurs before and/or after rifle season. The main reason bow season and rifle season do not overlap is for hunter safety. Hunting with a bow requires getting closer to an animal to make a shot, which means a hunter needs to be camouflaged. This is why we see some state laws requiring hunters to wear bright orange during rifle season but not during bow season. High-visibility orange lets rifle hunters be seen by other rifle hunters.
There’s a lot more that goes into designating hunting seasons, but the most important thing to remember is it’s a hunter’s responsibility to adhere to the regulations set by a governing wildlife agency or department.
Weapons
You’ll need to decide if you want to hunt with a firearm or a bow. Although there are crossover skills between bow hunting and rifle hunting, they’re different. Most people start with rifle hunting.
Most guns are referenced first by their caliber and then by their maker. A .300 Win Mag is short for a Winchester Magnum rifle in a .300 caliber. The caliber is the size of a rifle or handgun’s bore (i.e. the inside of the barrel) measured in hundredths of an inch, thousandths of an inch, or millimeters. For example, the bore of a .270-caliber rifle measures 270/1000ths of an inch in diameter, and it would be larger than a .243-caliber rifle.
There are a handful of oddities among calibers, however. For instance, a .30-06 (pronounced “thirty aught six”) caliber rifle is named as such because it has a bore diameter of .30” (7.62mm), but the “06” is a reference to the year 1906 when it became the official ammunition of the US military. A .30-30 has the same bore diameter as a .30-06 but the second “30” refers to the amount of smokeless gun powder the cartridge used when it debuted in 1895. The .30-30 was also never used by the military and has the distinction of being called one of America’s first hunting cartridges made for civilian sportsmen.
If you’re considering a firearm for hunting, here’s a glimpse of common gun calibers used for different species:
- Small Game and Varmint—.17, .22, .410 gauge shotgun
- Deer, Hog, Sheep, or Goat—.243, .25-06, .270, .308, .30-06, .30-30, 7mm
- Elk, Moose—.270, .300, .308, .30-06, 7mm
- Black Bear—.30-30, .444, .45-70
- Turkey, Migratory, or Upland Birds—.12 gauge or .20 gauge shotgun
Finding a Place to Hunt
There is no book that will tell you exactly where animals will be, or when they will be there, but there are sources that will help you figure it out. Let’s cover a few broad distinctions of places you might hunt.
Public or Private Land
Finding public or private land to hunt is why onX Hunt was created. The Hunt App shows boundaries between public properties and privately owned parcels. Some hunters use the landowner information in the App to knock on doors or write letters asking permission to hunt.
New hunters often turn to public lands for their first hunts. Public lands are easy to access, and most are open to some form of hunting, including national forests and some national parks. Each state is divided into different hunting units, sometimes called Game Management Units (GMUs), hunting districts, or zones.
What Makes Good Hunting Land?
Animals like the same things we like—food, water, and a place to rest. Good hunting spots usually have a lot of one of these things or a little bit of all three. Look for places that offer cover (i.e. protection) for animals, including tree cover, thick foliage, or geographic features that would make it hard for a predator to get to them. Look for water sources, anything from lakes to seasonal creeks. Food can be in the form of agricultural crops, native browse, or fruit and nut trees.
Gear Checklist
Every hunter should carry a few must-haves when heading into the field:
- Sharp hunting knife
- Water
- First aid kit
- Good boots
- Proper layers and rainwear
- Navigation tools
- Flashlight
- Emergency supplies (water purification system, extra food, shelter)
Getting Out There
Since legal shooting light is typically one-half hour before sunrise until one-half hour after sunset, you should be ready and in place well before sunrise. Getting to the spots you’ve scouted early will also help you beat out some of the other hunters who might be heading to the same public lands as you are.
Remember, any animal you down you’ll have to get out, so if you plan on hiking back seven miles into the backcountry, you’ll need to plan for getting your game back to your truck. Sometimes you can hunt smarter, not farther, than other hunters. Take your first few hunts slowly.
Hunting is strenuous and hydration can be a life or death factor. Drink throughout the day to keep your energy up, body temperature stable, and mind clear. If you’re thirsty, you’re dehydrated.
Field Dressing
If you harvest an animal, large or small, you’ll need to field dress it and get the meat cooled or in a cooler as quickly as possible. A deer’s living body temperature is 101 degrees Fahrenheit at rest. Getting the meat down to or below 40 degrees Fahrenheit is vital because bacteria in the meat can double every 20 minutes when it’s above 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
Field dressing involves removing the organs from the animal because they are the first to spoil and could cause your animal to become inedible. Even if you plan to take your animal to a local processor, you must field dress it.
There are many techniques for field dressing big game, including gutting it or using the gutless method. Take the time to watch videos of various methods beforehand, and if you have an experienced hunter willing to take you out, pay close attention to how they handle the animal if they harvest one.
Where To Go From Here
If you’ve been out a couple of times and have questions, or you want to find someone who will take you out on your first hunt, you should start connecting with other hunters. You’ll find them around your local gun and archery stores, in online forums, and as part of reputable wildlife conservation and land access groups.
Joining a conservation group or two should be high on your list of priorities as a new hunter. Most of them have knowledge that will help new hunters and ways to better understand the animals you’ll be hunting.
