Re: New to big game hunting, looking for a buddy.
Field dressing a deer sized animal isn't difficult, and shouldn't be what's holding you back. I think you're right: it's just fear of the unknown. My advice is to pick the method / video that you understand best, and make step-by-step instructions that you can take into the field with you. Here's the instructions I wrote for myself:
Cut back and around the anus-- free up the colon.
Cut up from there up from the scrotum and along one side of the pelvis-- must leave evidence of sex attached
Cut up either side of the urethra and expose one side of the pelvis, and then come back and go up the other side of the pelvis.
Cut around the front of the pelvis, leaving the middle bit attached. DO NOT sever the urethra-- this will spill urine.
Go up to the sternum and cut along the bone. Once you get to above the sternum, be careful not to puncture the guts.
Once the hide is pulled away, carefully puncture the abdominal wall, staying away from the guts.
Reach in with your fingers, and pull up the flesh and cut upwards from there, opening the skin covering the gut sack, leaving the abdominal lining attached.
DO NOT PUNCTURE ANYTHING,
Take a saw, and without cutting the bladder, saw each side of the pelvis bone. Pull the bit out to make a "gate"
Split up center of the sternum
Crack the chest open, reach in, pull the heart out
Reach in, pull up the wind pipe and sever it
Cut the diaphragm on each side.
Grab at wind pipe, pull free of diaphragm, pull the guts down and out the gate in the bottom
Retrieve the liver and kidneys
A conservationist is an environmentalist with a gun.