Regrettably, I live out in central MA, I dont know anything in the Boston area... Though a bunch of the guys here should be able to offer ideas.
Enjoy getting into it, and welcome to the board. This is a cool site, even when we disagree we all keep it productive. It's a really good bunch of folks that frequent here!
I have been fishing for a number of years, but, yes, I am new to hunting as well. I'll get my hunter safety course soon. Another question I have is this: if I want to hunt rabbits or turkeys or whatever, how do I find the animal? Do I just go to a random WMA and walk around? Or are there known spots for particular animals? Is there a method to scouting for particular animals?
Join a local sportsman club to shoot. You will meet other's excited in archery hunting and you can gain knowledge and potentially, meet someone who could be a mentor that lives local to you. Especially someone else skilled in hunting / shooting Trad gear.
In terms of the animals - I think a good start would be to log in to the Mass Wildlife web site and poke around. You will see info on rules and regs which are important to learn... but you will also find, if you poke around a little, areas of the site with articles or downloadable papers on things like Wild Turkey, rabbits, deer etc. This is info about the history of those animals in New England, and MA specifically. It will get into the biology, habitat, life cycle etc. That foundational info is what you need to be able to better understand "where" to find the animals you hope to hunt.
In terms of locations, wildlife management areas are a good start, as are state forests. Many, if not all state forests (but not all state parks - there are some different regs there so check into it before considering hunting in a state park) in MA are open to hunting. Those options give you a huge land mass to explore and start looking for hunting ground.
The most important skill there, is getting out, and walking the land. If you dont have map and compass skills - read about that and learn to use them at least roughly... DO NOT rely on gps - batteries can die. Learn map and compass first. Now, walk the ground and seek out the habitat the animals you seek enjoy (again, read on the biology of those animals, and with that knowledge you can start to reverse engineer where they may live).
Hopefully this helps some. Point blank, you are at the start of a never ending journey of growth. You will never "know" everything or even "most" of what there is to know about hunting... but you will learn more and more and ultimately feel more proficient and potentially even manage to kill your intended prey and go to the next step of enjoying the great table fare and healthy eating they provide.
One last thing, spray down your hunting clothes with a permithrin (Sawyers is a brand you will see a lot of "us" use) which is a very effective tick repellent.
You've chosen one of the most challenging ways to hunt game - a recurve bow. Practice, practice, practice... then practice some more. You owe it to the game you're hunting to be competent with your bow (accurate) and to know your effective range.
I love bowhunting. Our state offers plenty of places where we can pursue the game of our choice. For me, it's deer and turkeys. You can go on the MassWildlife website and get a ton of information about hunting, including public land where you can hunt. As for where you find game... that's the tricky part. They're out there. But, they can see, hear and smell a lot better than you can. Sneaking up on them is very difficult. It's called "stalking" and it's not easy to sneak yourself into recurve bow range of a deer or turkey without them knowing you're there. And, then you have to be able to draw undetected. Most of us here "stand" hunt, which basically means set ourselves up in a spot where we think we can ambush our prey within our effective range. You can stand hunt on the ground. But, it's proven to be far more effective to be in a treestand.
I've been hunting a long time (I'm old). It took me five years of bowhunting before I got my first deer. Then, just a week later, I got my second one with my bow. I was so bad in those early years, my kids said I didn't go hunting... I just walked around the woods with a weapon in my hands. LOL I made just about every mistake possible. Thankfully, I'm a pretty good experiential learner.
Straight arrows to you, Alex. I hope you get as much enjoyment out of our sport as I do.
And thank you all for the encouragement. It looks like I need to do a lot more reading and walking around. Definitely need to learn map & compass and stalking basics. Thank you, this is all very useful. Hopefully I'll be able to learn most of this before the season starts!
