This has worked fine for me. I keep my scope on 4x.

One tip: spend some time practicing shouldering your rifle, looking through the scope, and seeing the target. Many a deer has escaped because a hunter didn't know how to do this and found themselves waving the rifle around trying to find the deer in the field of view. Obviously do your practice keeping the gun in a safe direction and unloaded.

Thank you for this guidance.

It’s a bit of a story, but the gist of it is that I won’t be hunting until next season: I’m planning to spend as much time as I can spare in the next year to get comfortable with my gear and practice good form and accurate shooting. I *could* try this season, but would rather develop strong discipline than risk missing or taking an unethical shot. The landowner has also offered to let me visit the stand once or twice to get a feel for it and maybe even fire a shot or two so I get a sense of what that’ll be like. I really got lucky to find this opportunity. Will probably sign up for some lessons at the local range, too, both for safety and shooting form. I grew up with guns (including rifles), but haven’t shot in decades, and I want to do this right—not just for myself but also as an example for my son, who’ll be paying attention, I’m sure.

Have you got a .22 or even an air rifle? A few practice sessions with one of those, zero the deer rifle and shoot a few more practice rounds rounds through it and you'd be good to go. As I thought about it , doing those things with your son and maybe running through an online hunter safety course with him would send that message far better than anything else, IMHO.

I hear you, and I’m probably guilty of overthinking all of this—it’s the way I roll. I just want to get so comfortable shooting my rifle that it feels like a reflex. So I can do a better job, in the moment, when the adrenaline is pumping, focusing on all the other variables, like whether it’s a deer I want to shoot, whether I have a clean, ethical shot, etc. The business about remembering to disengage the safety, acquiring target in the scope, not jerking the trigger, and all that—if I can make all of that second-nature, then I want to do that.

I’m betting all of this sounds really stupid to experienced shooters/hunters. Like I said, complete noob here.

Not at all. There's nothing like the anticipation of your first hunt--'cept shooting your first deer. Nothing tops that.