out of state hunting trips?

[Patrick Thomas]

I was a lot younger then.

I did some trapping on that trip, caught a few Martin

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My brothers and I trapped every year till we graduated from high school. That’s we how we made money in the winter. Loved it.

 

[fleener]

CN is for Canada.

Fleener

 

[Logcutter]

"Out west" is just to far for me. To much driving and to much money. I often think about going up to the Adirondacks in NY or even up to Maine to hunt. I could afford that I think. But here's the thing. Where I live in PA I have literally hundreds of thousands of acres to hunt. Between national forest, state forest, game lands, timber company lands, I could never hunt it all. And its good hunting. Very good. Black bear, whitetail deer, and turkey everywhere. And last year I had three deer tags. Filled them all. This year I have four tags and I could have bought another had I wanted it. License and tags less than $75. So its hard to justify traveling.

 

[Six-Gun]

"Out west" is just to far for me. To much driving and to much money. I often think about going up to the Adirondacks in NY or even up to Maine to hunt. I could afford that I think. But here's the thing. Where I live in PA I have literally hundreds of thousands of acres to hunt. Between national forest, state forest, game lands, timber company lands, I could never hunt it all. And its good hunting. Very good. Black bear, whitetail deer, and turkey everywhere. And last year I had three deer tags. Filled them all. This year I have four tags and I could have bought another had I wanted it. License and tags less than $75. So its hard to justify traveling.

PA is a pretty incredible state as far as access. I want to say that the public land available is something crazy like 4 million acres. It's nuts considering that it's one of the long settled states in the country with a fairly high population. They have preserved a lot of high quality public land despite this and that definitely makes for a compelling reason to stay close to home. I grew up near Philly, which is as terrible as you can imagine for hunting access, but in the northwest near Allegheny National Forest (2F/2H) where you are is like a whole other world. A guy could get lost and never found up that way and I envy your location!

That said, my military life has forced me to move and adapt to different places. The good news is that it also subsidized a large part of the travel cost. The bad news is that it makes hunting tough because you typically get only 2-3 years to learn a place. BUT, you learn how to scout and get it done quickly, and can hunt a ton of different places if you are willing to travel even a bit from your duty station. There's a ton of fun in finding success in unfamiliar woods and mountains, and I make it a point to do so even outside of my required moves. The states/places covered with my traditional muzzleloading hunts and all other hunts has sprawled over the years due to the military life and pure desire to travel:

- Pennsylvania
- Maryland
- Ohio
- Georgia
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Nebraska
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Missouri
- Colorado
- Arizona
- Nevada
- Montana
- South Dakota
- Alaska
- Ontario, Canada
- South Africa

- Next up - Wyoming: taking my German Shorthair to drive west one state over to chase blue and ruffed grouse when I get home from my current overseas deployment next month. If you can find the desire and the budget to get out West, I can only beg you to check it out. The scenery alone is worth it.