I should mention there is two ways to hunt deer.
Still or stealth hunting from the ground or stand.
Trained hunting dogs that flush the deer out into the open.
Seeing well trained dogs at work is quite amazing. Dogs are smart. I haven’t hunted with dogs in at least 30 years. My grand dad kept and trained them.
Please don’t shoot at running/moving deer; you will probably just wound it. Wait for that second when it hesitates and you have a clear shot at the vitals from the side or slightly angled away. And don’t do that head shot thing; you wouldn’t believe me but I’ve seen the films - the chances of “a clean kill or a clean miss” is pretty much crap. Heart, lungs, liver and watch the shoulder bones.
(We actually teach anatomy as part of the basic hunter ed classes.)
(BTW - I hate pump rifles; especially in large calibers. You DO NOT want to know how many times I’ve heard 4-7 shots fast, faster than a bolt can go and semis are illegal here for deer, knowing that after the first one at a probably moving target someone just sprayed and prayed.)
Yes, I phrased that wrong. I should have said ‘do you know how to shoot at a target that might move at any moment’?
aceplace57, hunting deer with dogs is very much illegal in New York State. I don’t know where the OP is (though deer season’s almost over, here.)
List of states that allow dogs for hunting deer. Lot of regulations. You can do it in this county and not another one.
I’d guess it’ll soon be eliminated everywhere. It’s a controversial subject among many.
https://ruralpropertyrights.wildapricot.org/Deer-Dog-Hunting-in-Other-Southern-States
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I grew up in the city and had never fished or hunted. I bought a ranch in a rural area. My friends were all about the deer hunt. And we talked about hunting and field dressing deer. I had flash cards, also. This was pre-internet. Hell, we didn’t even have electricity.
My dad gave me his 30-30 Winchester. I bought boxes and boxes of bullets. I couldn’t sight it in because it kicked so much. I bought a single action, dead bolt .223. I wanted to give the deer a chance. It was a great gun. Put a scope on it.
On the day of the kill, my wife woke me up and said there was a deer in the pasture. Still in my pajamas, I grabbed the rifle, loaded a round, and stuck another in my mouth.
The deer was a hundred meters away. Thanks to the level shooting .223, I delivered a shot to the heart. Ran over and with my flash cards in hand, field dressed it. Brought it home and skinned it. For many nights I hung it in a tree. During the day, I would put it in a sleeping bag and store it in a cool place in the house.
Then the day came to debone it. It took us, my wife and I, eight hours to debone it. We were novices. A friend down the canyon let us store it in his freezer.
I took the head into town to show off my kill. It was what people did in those days The only complaint they had was I left too much meat on the head.
It was a great experience. We had delicious meat for months.
But, I would heed the advise up stream. What happened to me was very fortunate.
To the OP, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a stupid idea but I would say that it’s not a very good one.
There are many more ways. Nobody around here uses dogs (illegal) or stands (pointless, few trees).
The typical way is spot and stalk. Climb a mountain or large hill which provides a vantage point around the surrounding country (miles). Use sufficient binoculars or spotting scopes to find them. Then head down to them.
“Road hunting” enjoys a poor reputation, but sometimes you spot them from the truck, and “road” means horribly rutted out dirt path that hasn’t been travelled by humans in 5 or 10 years. Not driving the highway.
Still hunting is very different from blind hunting. It needs lots of cover, which is rarer around here.
Answering the OP’s specific question:
Yes. I started hunting on my own, with no mentor and no experience at all.
I took Arizona’s mandated hunter education class, applied for the relevant tags, and went* to my assigned hunt area to bag an Antelope. I tried stalk hunting but kept spooking the herd. Eventually the dominant male wandered over to have a closer look at me, and I just stood still until it got close enough to shoot. I field-dressed it while referring to a book I’d bought at the gun store (pre cell phone era). I’d never shot anything, never been hunting, and never seen an animal gutted before, but it all worked out OK. I just followed the instructions and drawings in the book.
I left the entrails and hide on the ground and carried the meat to my truck - thence to a processor who made it into nice little freezer packages for me.
I should note that prior to the date I spent considerable time in the area scouting about for the animals and trying to learn about them. Since this was AZ BLM land, I found a large ranch located in the hunt boundaries and talked to the owner. I explained my lack of experience and that I wanted to minimize my impact on his stock. He was gracious and showed me where the antelope hung out, and agreed to pen up his own animals during those days. This was a win-win for both of us, and his advice made things much easier for me.
*I was with a friend who also got drawn for that hunt, and he took a picture of me with my kill. It’s hanging over my monitor now and it’s comical. I’m wearing blue jeans, a striped Izod shirt, aviator glasses, and sneakers. I had no idea about proper hunter fashion at the time. 
When we were kids, my little brother shot a big buck a few hundred yards from our house. He came running home to get me, because he didn’t know how to field dress the deer. He got his picture in the local paper with his kill. So, yeah. It can be done.
Yea, the style of deer hunting is highly dependent on the layout of the land. Around these parts I would estimate 90% of deer hunters sit in tree stands and wait for a deer to walk by. Some use food and scents as bait, which is legal in Ohio. Trying to “stalk them” on foot doesn’t work around here; they will hear you (and run) well before you see them.
Oh, and can we bring up pet peeves? I am contemptuous toward deer hunters who only want to “bag a buck.” They refuse to shoot a fully-grown doe because they want a buck with a “big rack” for bragging purposes. It doesn’t help that hunting magazines always show a big buck on the cover… 
Yeah, it seems that attitude has changed in the last few years though, and partially enforced by outdated science. Originally, the thought was that males can breed with multiple females but females can only carry 1 or 2 fawns, so you should have a population that consists of a few males and many females. It turns out that quality management works better with a somewhat more even ratio. Some states have/had a “buy a buck” program where you had to shoot a doe before you could get your second buck. Now I think more people would still prefer a buck, but the ease of getting a doe tag means it’s still a popular choice. Here we must make the choice months in advance, you can’t decide on the fly.
Bow hunters take a huge amount of deer at ranges that average below 10 yards. Most of them hunt tree stands but a lot of them also use ground blinds. Look for game trails and pay close attention to which way the wind is blowing. They can big up your scent from a good ways off if the breeze is right. More important to hunt the wind than trying to cover your scent.
Agree.
Hunting apparel that is supposedly designed to “hide your scent” (using a charcoal lining or whatever) is a scam. Most of your scent is exhaled through your mouth & nose. An experienced hunter will hunt with the wind blowing toward their face. They also move their eyes more than their head.
Going deer hunting. Sounds fascinating.
If I was your wife I would start out with a bit more humility and try for small game first.
Fascinating thread. I’ve often asked myself the same. I took hunters’ safety as a kid (it satisfied the requirements of a boy scout merit badge), but I never knew any hunters well enough to get an invite. I’d love to go out with an experienced hunter in Michigan. Rifle, not bow. Deer, not mourning doves.
Depends quite a bit on where you are.
Here there are too many deer for the carrying capacity, so they encourage taking doe. Most hunters can get a doe permit as well as a buck permit. As a farmer I can also get doe permits that can be used on this specific property by any otherwise legal hunter to whom I give permission, although I don’t hunt myself. NYSDEC has been giving me five such permits every year for a number of years now. This year so far the people I give permission to have used two of them (as well as a couple of their own buck permits.)
When I got into backpack hunting I started hanging out on Rokslide. They are mainly aimed at elk but they do deer as well. Its also mainly aimed at the Western US but they talk about gear, hunting tips, getting in shape, skinning and generally have a ton of good information on how to hunt. They are worth checking out.
Humility isn’t the right word. Small game is more accessible but it’s not really easier in many cases.
There were mentions of archery above, but no explicit recommendations, but I want to state that starting with a bow is a terrible idea. I bought my first bow recently but it will be a couple years before I feel anywhere near comfortable to use it on a living target/
The mean tag rate around here is <1, we get an attempt at either buck or doe in one species per year. Landowners can get tags but most of the land is public. Other states have guaranteed over the counter tags, or in deep whitetail country multiple animals (like 9/year if you can find them).
This is for new hunters. I know many seasoned hunters insist their butchering skills, sausage making, and steaks are the best in the county. I wouldn’t dare contradict them either. 
I feel it’s important that deer are brought to a processor. Badly butchered meat can be so tough and gamey that it ends up unused, freezer burnt, and eventually thrown out. That’s a terrible waste of the animal.
A good processor offers so many options to use the meat. Jalapeno & cheese bratwurst were very, very popular this year. Chili meat is a must have. I always request deer roasts. I take them to a local barbecue to be smoked and sliced. So Delicious. 
I’m a bit unusual that I don’t like deer steak, unless it’s been expertly prepared. We gave up trying to cook deer steak long ago. It always came out gamey and leather tough.