If you want a great book resource, I would highly recommend Steven Rinella's Complete Guide to Hunting series. It covers a wide range of topics from gear selection, hunting methods, and some recipe ideas. His show and podcasts are also good.
Read the guide to hunting, butchering and cooking. Vol 1 is big game, vol 2 is small game. Check out the show Meat Eater on netflix. Also watch a guy on youtube named Randy Newburg.
That will cover a lot of the basics.
I don’t think that’s completely true here in Texas, at least for animals that have been trapped. I ate at a restaurant here in Austin that sells some wild game. I struck up a conversation with their butcher, who had been butchering a wild boar. He did say that the animal has to be slaughtered in front of a a USDA inspector. I have a buddy with a cattle ranch, so this is very relevant to my interests.
Edit: The chef/owner of the restaurant has a really good cookbook for wild game and fish. His place, Dai Due, was named one of the ten best new restaurants in America by Bon Appétit magazine a few years ago.
Second this and when I went out first time last year his book had all the info I needed to, 1 stay safe and 2 tactics in hunting and 3 how to field dress it.
The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game https://www.amazon.com/dp/081299406X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Bg5QBb59ZXHR1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/099694480X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_PNNA2NSFZWJ6MR5BZ534
I highly recommend you buy this cook book it gives you recipes that can be used for any cervid whether it's moose, roe deer, white tail etc. This cookbook completely changed what I do with my venison and everyone I recommend it to has agreed.
I would take Steven Rinella's advice way before I would take my own. I would read this. https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Hunting-Butchering-Cooking/dp/081299406X
I am an easterner and don't know the first think about Elk. I have spent some time in the backcountry in your fine state. I think it might be wise to consider going deer hunting first. It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to learn butchering on a deer. Maybe that is just my eastern perspective, or lack thereof.
You said you were in AZ so you have a lot of options: Deer, Elk, Antelope, Coues Deer, and javelina can all be taken with a 30-06.
Here's my suggestion:
Ok so there are a bunch of really great YouTube videos. Also highly recommend Steve Rinella’s books. The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking Wild Game
A couple butchers from Tennessee wrote a great book.
Homemade Sausage: Recipes and Techniques to Grind, Stuff, and Twist Artisanal Sausage at Home https://www.amazon.com/dp/1631590731/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_R3Z75BBZ2D6C3BV3WRN1
I highly recommend these books by Steven Rinella:
Big game: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081299406X/ref=dbs_a_w_dp_081299406x
Join the Alberta BHA Facebook, they have webinars/presentations available for just these questions. I think there’s a pack dump webinar happening this week, if I remember right, as well as a hunting draw and e-scouting one.
The MeatEater books and videos are great resources, especially if you’re packing out the game in a backpack, and want to bone out, combined with the gutless method, because dragging deer, without a sled, sucks.
The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game https://www.amazon.ca/dp/081299406X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_2YQV5ZDJJT1Z3VNJRJ8V
Hi everybody!
Hope you don't mind if I share this!
I am an indie author and set up a free promotion for my "Carnivore Diet Cookbook" on Amazon for the next 48 hours.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094W8BVDP
You can download it for absolutely free in the next 2 days.
It's my first cookbook, hope you will like it!
(And leave a review if you love it! ♡ :D)
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B094W8BVDP
It takes literally 30 seconds and it makes a HUGE difference for me)
Hi everybody!
Hope you don't mind if I share this!
I am an indie author and set up a free promotion for my "Carnivore Diet Cookbook" on Amazon for the next 48 hours.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094W8BVDP
You can download it for absolutely free in the next 2 days.
It's my first cookbook, hope you will like it!
(And leave a review if you love it! ♡ :D)
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B094W8BVDP
It takes literally 30 seconds and it makes a HUGE difference for me)
Hi everybody!
I am an indie author and set up a free promotion for my "Carnivore Diet Cookbook" on Amazon for the next 72 hours.
Link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B094W8BVDP
You can download it for absolutely free in the next 3 days.
It's my first cookbook, hope you will like it!
(And leave a review if you love it! ♡ :D
https://www.amazon.com/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B094W8BVDP
It takes literally 30 seconds and it makes a HUGE difference for me!)
I am not sure what help I can offer, but I am a self taught, adult hunter. My dad hasn't been around much in my life, and certainly no help out of doors.
If you put Steven Rinella's Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking Wild Game, https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Hunting-Butchering-Cooking/dp/081299406X, into an Amazon Wish List and send me a link to the list I will see that it ends up on your doorstep.
Do you have access to a suitable firearm?
Are you thinking deer or small game?
Obligatory Meat Eater Guide to big game hunting
I'm also in BC (Interior) and a late onset hunter. I didn't get my liscence til I was 21. My first year or two were rough. I found that book helped me out a lot. Also try and find a mentor, Check out Hunting BC Forum. There's alot of cool people and resources there which are BC specific.
But yes get your CORE, can't do anything without that. I did mine online and found someone local to me to take my test. I don't reccomend that way cause the online didn't cover alot of the test and I nearly failed it honestly (Pay Attention to your bird species!)
Also do you have a PAL? There is a few schools out there that offer PAL and CORE in weekend courses. I would look around at local Fish and Game clubs. Of course you don't need a PAL to hunt but I wish you the best of look if you wanna try Bow only. It's not easy and arguably less ethical.
This is my first book:
It has done very well. When it came out I travelled a lot and did workshops at events like the Mother Earth News Fair, I taught 2 and 3 day classes to hundreds of adult beginners, and did a lot of radio and TV.
The opportunity that was there when that book came out is not present any more. The existing world of gun manufacturers, hunting magazines, hunting equipment suppliers, NGOs and industry groups has been too much split off by Trumpism. Most of those groups are now vocally tied to xenophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-gay support for Donald Trump and his movement, which represents the antithesis of the values of aspiring new hunters and fishers. Trump's total lack of effort to even pretend to support conservation issues important to outdoors people has destroyed any ability of that coalition to convince these people to have anything to do with anyone who endorses that camp.
Recruiting new hunters from non-hunting demographics in the US hinges on bringing in people from the slow food, paleo, and similar food movements. That's the audience. The non-hunters interested in learning how to hunt for food are mostly horrified by the racist, xenophobic political movement that has been embraced by the manufacturers and industry groups that could otherwise enable and support that work.
You basically can't do this successfully right now. The audience is too distant from the rest of the hunting community. Ten years ago, I could introduce these people to one another and they were able to get along. That isn't true now.
Check out The Whole Beast by Fergus Henderson not only will this book show you how to prepare various types of liver, it will show you how to use other parts of the animal you wouldn’t normally see/use.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/081299406X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_OcoMFb9WC88G9
And definitely watch this show. Good luck on hunting, it's an amazing time. Look and see if there's anyone local that would want to go with you, friends want to hunt to at all?
The recipe I follow calls for 8 ounces cream per 5lbs of meat. It comes from this book, which i highly recommend.
I recommend stuff from these guys quite a lot. They just do a very good job approaching these topics of a laymen’s POV.
The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game https://www.amazon.com/dp/081299406X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_ODGqFbTFRHEW9
The show (MeatEater) on Netflix often shows cleaning and processing, but the earlier seasons not on Netflix typically does more. Search for them on YouTube or get a free trial to the outdoor network on amazon.
Steve Rinella of tv show Meat Eater has books on Amazon specific to what you request. One is called"
Volume 2 is really good for small game as well. These truly are the BEST resources possible outside of in person mentoring for a new hunter, coming from someone who has hunted for 25 years.
I have this one on my kindle.
Slow cooking works well for game because most wild meat is lean and easily overcooked otherwise, making it tough.
Steve Rinella has a two volume set that would make a great gift: https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Hunting-Butchering-Cooking/dp/081299406X
the hunting courses kinda suck in my experience (although i just did the online alberta one and converted it to a BC hunter number)
The best resource for a deer hunting primer IMO would be this book
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Hunting-Butchering-Cooking/dp/081299406X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1502480212&sr=8-1&keywords=steve+rinella and https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Hunting-Butchering-Cooking/dp/0812987055/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1502480212&sr=8-2&keywords=steve+rinella I will post these until I am blue in the face.
Sounds like you're pretty new to hunting as well as bow hunting given some of the questions in the thread about more than stalking like licenses etc... Just thought I'd throw this out there for you to check out, it's a good book with lots of good information for you. Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking