The Savage youth model would be a good choice. Fit is very important to managing recoil, as well good aiming form. Check with Savage. They were running a deal on youth rifles offering an adult sized stock for later at 50% MSRP.

As far as cartridge, I am not a fan of any 22 cal. for deer. eventhough many deer have been bagged with such rounds as the 22.250 Rem. and 223 Rem. I would advise to stay with one of the "old standards", such as the 243. Win., 260 Rem., and 7mm/08 Rem. as one of the more moderate recoil selections. Certainly the 270 Win. is an excellent choice. Ammo prices continue to rise and availability of some of the more exotic and less popular cartridges are poor in my neck of the woods.

As far as scope ... do not scrimp. Buy the best that your budget can manage. El-Cheapo scopes are just that "cheap" , not a an economical buy because you will sooon want to upgrade. These are bottom end glass, weak QA, little or no performance at low light, most often Chinese made and not durable. I have made that mistake. Stay with one of the proven lines ... Leupold, Burris, Vortex, Nikon, Bushnell (Elite), Ziess, etc. I am confident that if you can manage spending $300 or more, you will end up with a pretty good scope. I would expect that for typical Florida deer hunting, anything in a 1.5-6X40 mm would do great.

When to hunt? As already stated, any time that you can. Check with the Florida WGF info. They probably provide good, free information about the deer estrus cycles across the state. Those dates would be prime.

Good luck.