What state would you live in to own and live on hunting ranch

[cambo0420]

Hey guys,
Been saving my money and still have a long way to go but if you could have that dream hunting ranch that you would live on year round what state would it be in and why? would you want to live in a whitetail filled state like Iowa or Illinois or Texas or a western state like Idaho, or Montana where you could chase elk, deer, antelope bear, etc. Tell me what states you guys would want to live in and why. Thanks

 

[alaskanparret]

Alaska, because then you don’t need to own a ranch or hundred of acres to be successful. Public land.
Deer
Moose
Caribou
Elk
Bear
Etc


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[NCSU_Lewis]

I am eyeballing pretty much a dream job in NW Wyoming. Just the idea of having USFS all around is appealing, but it would be nice to have some land along with it. Prices are a little better than farm and timber land back east too.

 

[Dunndm]

In a dream world. If I could own a lot of land for a hunting ranch. It would be in
1. Montana
2. Colorado
3. Michigan or Illinois

Montana and Colorado for the verity of game and Michigan/Illinois for the deer


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[WRO]

New Mexico on a ranch that has lop sheep tags.

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[Murdy]

Illinois has a lot of big deer, the problem is Illinois has very little public land, so if you are planning on coming here, you better plan on acquiring a lot of land, or you'll be hunting the same 40 for the rest of your life. I'd put Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota ahead, probably Iowa too and maybe Missouri.

Myself, I'd look real close at New Mexico.

 

[idahohikker]

I personally think you'd be crazy to buy a place that's not in the West. I think Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico would all be great. I'd probably look into how the state treats landowners, access to depredation tags, etc.

 

[S.Clancy]

If you're looking for low population densities, a population that is very supportive of hunting, lots of public land, reasonable draws, resident over-the-counter opportunity, etc go to Wyoming.

 

[SoDaky]

Wyoming.Good everything plus very few people and no income tax.As a res,you hunt pretty what you want.

 

[boom]

probably NM.

in reality, buying a ranch is expensive and maintaining cant be cheap. +what would i do for a living? for me, mathematically, it would be cheaper to buy onto other peoples ranches in the form of private land tags. that way, i can stay put and work at job that allows me the decent pay to hunt.

i move to NM..i imagine my income would dip significantly.

 

[juan trueno]

Never figured there’d be enough money for a ranch. I bought a camp in Mi that backs up to huge contiguous State land and a couple miles from PRC. I bought a camp in AK that backs up to a river I really enjoy.

D cent little bit of infrastructure in place at each to support recreational use indefinitely on a whim. Costs me almost $600 a year though just to let run wild. About twice that much to keep maintained- so it’s not for everyone.


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[N2TRKYS]

Alabama

 

[George]

I spent 9 years as a resident deer hunter in Iowa and would say that for whitetail Iowa would be hard to beat. However I became somewhat cramped on my 80 and also ran out of wall space. So now I live 200 yards from 3 million acres of public land in CO, so far so good.

G

 

[Billinsd]

Montana for sure. And my Ranch would stretch from Missoula to the northeast border with North Dakota!!!

 

[PF_JM]

Texas, especially if it comes with mineral rights. Then I would just travel to hunt the other big game species.

 

[philos]

Wyoming or Nevada. Honestly if I could turn back the clock I would look at Argentina-although your posts mentions that you are looking at US.

 

[Mojave]

There are ranches in New Mexico, Texas and Colorado that have land owner bighorn or desert sheep tags.

Here is my take, it depends on resources, wildlife and locality.

1000 acres in the Texas hill country could be awesome. You could fence it and have whatever wildlife you wanted. Fair chase would be a bit of a stretch, but it is better than 200.

5000 acres in Texas hill country would be better. Ranch I hunted in Namibia was 5000, and it seemed small but it was more like New Mexican desert.

5000 acres in the timber would be quite a bit of land.

50,000 acres is pretty nice size virtually anywhere, but those properties are almost all gone now.

If you lived in the desert or prairie farther West, you'd want a hell of a lot more land to have anything.

I hunted a place that was 500,000 acres in West Texas (I onx mapped it, they actually owned all of it). It was huge, had both alpine mountains covered in Junipers, big open rock faces, prairie and was amazing. But right on the Mexican border so I'd pass.

 

[49ereric]

Hey guys,
Been saving my money and still have a long way to go but if you could have that dream hunting ranch that you would live on year round what state would it be in and why? would you want to live in a whitetail filled state like Iowa or Illinois or Texas or a western state like Idaho, or Montana where you could chase elk, deer, antelope bear, etc. Tell me what states you guys would want to live in and why. Thanks

Horn hunting or meat for survival?
for meat Alaska be hard to beat. Otherwise a place with few nosy neighbors.

 

[gabenzeke]

Alaska or Wyoming. I live in Iowa and I think you can expect an encounter with a 150 buck every year if you work hard, but there aren't near as many true giants here as there have been in the past. It'll come back, just seems like we're in a dip for now.

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[daniellmcquillan]

not quite a ranching place but Alaska will fir er be home