re: Hunting - where to start?

No expert but here is my 2 cents from someone who grew up around hunting but never fell in love with it.

First obviously get all the safety and license out of the way. Then start saving for guided hunts. Use their expertise, their land, their equipment. It blows my mind at the number of hunters who invest thousands upon thousands of dollars as well as 100's of hours of land management, recon, etc just for a couple of trips a year. Do these people even have a wife or children?!

My favorite hunting as a teen were squirrel, quail, and dove. The problem with squirrel was, no-one ate squirrel (so why hunt it?). Quail was probably the most real hunting I did but we didnt have a dog. It was basically hiking with shotguns. Dove hunting was awesome and a community event where we would just go out and sit in a field on a 5 gallon bucket. I remember many days just hanging out in a field, talking, listening to the football games, and blasting away. It wasn't really hunting but an awesome time for a youngster.