How far must you travel to hunt?

[pab1]

I'm very fortunate. Within 10 miles of my home (usually much less) there are whitetail deer, mule deer (always in town), elk, moose, bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, black bear (occasionally in town), mountain lions (often in town), grizzly bear (no hunting for them), wolf, cottontails, snowshoe hares, squirrels, ducks, geese, snipe, sandhill crane and several grouse species. All of them can be hunted in that area (except grizzly) with a lot of public land. A few species (bighorn sheep, moose, pronghorn, sandhill crane) require a tag to be drawn.

 

[SOLANCO]

Deer, squirrel, ground hog, dove I could shoot off my couple acres but over the neighbors' grounds. It's all good with them. A five minute drive will put me on county conservancy ground with good cover bordered by farm fields.
Turkey is coming back strong. I have had to stop on the two lane to let a flock cross. Thinking a .22 unmentionable head shot for the holiday.
Decades ago this used to be pheasant heaven. One year the population just collapsed and no one has ever figured why. Even with gun clubs giving out birds to stock with it doesn't come back.
We get the very occasional young bear. More so as time passes and the population rebounds. At some point the cubs get evicted to go find their own way and they travel through. A buddy looked out his second floor window and found one in his tree looking in.
Every other year or so their is a rumor of mountain lion sighting. One captured in the 15 years I have been here.
And of course their is fox and coyote. If you do not believe you have coyote I would politely suggest you are not paying attention.

 

[Hussar64]

Minimum of 3 hour drive.

 

[azmntman]

Any where outside city limits for shotgun or archery. Maybe 20 Min for all the rifle big game.

 

[Va Hunter]

My deer blind is about 300 yards from my house. I start hunting as soon as I get on the porch.

 

[Daveboone]

Upstate NY here. We are lucky, in that we actually have scads of public land open to hunting with fewer hunters on it every year. Everyone thinks they need to have a private preserve or whatever. That said, I have a modest camp on ten acres, surrounded by thousands of acres of state and county land, all huntable, an hour away from home. Most often, I will go up after work to hunt the next day, but will drive up the same morning.

 

[Rawhide67]

I'm not in a city, but only own the acre my house sets on, near a small city. I guess I'm lucky that I can walk across my neighbors 45 acres and hit state land in about 10 minutes.

Of course, where I live, there isn't much game. A successful deer season is just seeing a deer. Haven't seen a partridge in a couple years. Rarely a rabbit track.

 

[Surrywoodman]

I can hunt my own land but it is only a few acres of woods behind my place, which backs up to land owned by one of the paper mills. Public land is where 99% of my large game hunting is done. One spot is 1.5 hours away and I usually do a thunder run for that, even when I lived in the city and it was 2.5 hours then. It was a really long day but I did not care, it was totally fun. The other place is in the mountains of VA, about 4 hours away. When we do that, we either tent camp or, if a pop up is available, we use that. It is never a day trip, minimum would be 3 to 4 days but we have always ended up doing 7 days

 

[Pilgrim]

It depends on which public land I hunt—ten to twenty-five miles from my house. Or I hunt my small rural homestead.

 

[Brokennock]

Kind of depends on what I'm after, and how serious I am. Am I seriously intent on getting a deer or am I just in need of some woods time?
I can be in some public woods legal for deer and small game with about a 15 minute drive, walk to one of my deer stands could be 10 minutes or half an hour, but, this is a low odds piece of land. I can be bird/pheasant hunting my club property in about 15 to 20 minutes depending on traffic.

If I'm more serious about deer, I'm looking at a drive of about 35 to 45 minutes, maybe an hour. Then a walk to one of my stands of 15 minutes to an hour depending on where I've chosen. The hour walk is steep.

Turkeys? Well, the best public land I've ever hunted was almost an hour away, beautiful property, lots of animals of many kinds, fantastic place. But, not just an hour away, but, the 4 wheeler ATV crowd has destroyed the property, illegal riding, no motorized vehicles allowed on such public land, but they've truly destroyed the place. I've not found a really good public land turkey spot since. They have too much easy access to slip off the state land onto nice private land.

Their is a lot of nice private land closer to me, but, I have no permission for any of it.

 

[TerryK]

10 to 30 miles usually. No need for a camp. I have 2 state forests in that distance with 500,000 acres of public land.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I live a few minutes outside city limits in a semi-rural location surrounded by woods. I can just open my back door and shoot to get venison. But that is not hunting. There is a national forest less than 30 min. south of me, plus there is quite a bit of Corps of Engineers land bordering lakes nearby that allow hunting within a short distance.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

I live up in the woods you see, just the woman and the dog and me.
Around here when you hear a shot, someone got dinner

 

[Old Oak]

About 2 hours for good coues hunting, 1 hour for mulies, 31/2 for elk and squirrel, 5 for turkeys and back porch for eurasian dove.

 

[Capt. Jas.]

Out of the front or back door of my house

 

[Smokepole55]

trying to make it worse?
sorry, i just have an overwhelming aversion to cities!
Am not a farmer but don't live in a city either. none the less, i will answer, because it is the source of my mental well being.
i have to travel 12 feet. from my recliner to my front/back/side porch.

About 8 feet for me to hunt or three feet if the turkeys are on the deck. Not a farmer but own three acres here in E Oregon.

 

[JEBMs]

35 minutes to a WMA or 20 minutes to a friend’s farm for everything but turkey, that’s about an hour to corps of engineers land. The photos are 30 yards out my back door, I could bow hunt there but orders from the war department strictly prohibit that so I just feed them and enjoy watching them

 

[Patocazador]

I have to drive anywhere from 1/4 mile to hunt doves or ducks or 11-200 miles to hunt deer depending on what permit I might draw. Feral hogs are everywhere except when you want to kill one.
Squirrels are in the yard and it's OK to shoot them because I don't live in a city. Quail are now extinct around here and it's almost the same with rabbits. Varmints (coyotes, *****, possums, armadillos, etc.) are everywhere and have no closed season.

 

[deerstalkert]

35 minutes to a WMA or 20 minutes to a friend’s farm for everything but turkey, that’s about an hour to corps of engineers land. The photos are 30 yards out my back door, I could bow hunt there but orders from the war department strictly prohibit that so I just feed them and enjoy watching them

we must have the same commanding General!

 

[Jay Templin]

When I lived in Williamsburg, I would hunt at the WMA here in Charles City, about 1/2 hour of driving, or at a friend’s place in Surry, which was 20 minutes of driving with a 20 minute ferry ride in the middle.
Even now that I own land and have taken deer on it, I still occasionally hunt with a friend of mine, couple of hours away.
We have 46 WMAs in Virginia, encompassing more than 215,000 acres, and you can hunt on some of the Army bases, Corps of Engineers land, and in certain state parks and national forests.
Jay