The "get away" feeling

[BJE80]

Sometimes driving there is half the fun. We are 2.5hrs away and I enjoy the drive.

 

[phil@thesidehill]

This is a very similar situation to what my parents are experiencing right now stu. They packed up and moved to WY to be near my brother and his boys, which was great, except they both kind of hate it out there. They say it's great being a 15 minute drive from the mountains, but it sucks only having a couple small grocery stores, a family owned drug store and a Pamida, the nearest Wal-Mart/Shopko/Walgreen's type stores are almost an hour away. I told them the same thing as well, try it for a few months before you commit, nope and now they are having second thoughts.

Hell....they could have moved to where i live in PA! My entire county has 5200 full time residents. One traffic light in the entire county. One "town" with 2 small grocery stores, 2 gas stations, 2 banks, and now only 2 restaurants, 2 bars...you get the picture....once upon a time the town was booming though. the nearest big boxes, chain/franchise restaurants, or malls are all 45 to 60 min drives. "modern convenience" isnt very convenient for us. I like it, my wife struggles with it at times. it requires more planning to make it work.

I kinda have it a bit of all of this. My land is 3 miles from my driveway. I'm close enough to be there alot, but i dont live on it. but where i live is "away from it all". My buddy just bought a property that is "camp" and it is about 12 mins from my driveway.....his place is really out there....no cell service either...but the "cabin" is nicer than my house! he lives out of state about 5 hours from here. I can go up to his place and still feel like i'm away from it all. However, growing up I still lived in a very small town, but it was closer to larger towns and small citites. We hunted out of a camp that was off grid and was WAY out of the way!

 

[West Branch]

Hell....they could have moved to where i live in PA! My entire county has 5200 full time residents. One traffic light in the entire county. One "town" with 2 small grocery stores, 2 gas stations, 2 banks, and now only 2 restaurants, 2 bars...you get the picture....once upon a time the town was booming though. the nearest big boxes, chain/franchise restaurants, or malls are all 45 to 60 min drives. "modern convenience" isnt very convenient for us. I like it, my wife struggles with it at times. it requires more planning to make it work.

Yup, where I grew up in MN the closest gas station was 12 miles away, the closest small town grocery store was 18 miles and it was 40+ miles to chain restaurants and big stores. We had about 300 students in K-12 in one building for our public school. School district was over 200 sq miles, so almost 1.5 students per sq mile.

The east side of our county had some bigger towns, but to the north and west there are a few townships with <1 person per sq mile.

 

[wiscwhip]

Sometimes driving there is half the fun. We are 2.5hrs away and I enjoy the drive.

Ummm...not so much. I am 2.5 hours from the grandbabies and I dread that drive every time we go see them or pick them up for a week, mainly because I know I have to make the drive back at some point!

 

[bwoods11]

I'm fortunate to be able to have properties close and 4 and 6.5 hours away respectively. Positives and negatives to both. First off, you take for granted the close farms and probably spend too much time on them if you are trying to grow big deer (which is tough in MN anyway). The farms--several hours away, as MO states, tough to find the time to do the habitat work etc...

The nice thing about the distance is it keeps me away from the farm during the off season and creates more of a sanctuary.

As far as that vacation feeling, I think I get that feeling with both close and far away. I've found there is not an acre that I own that doesn't excite me. It's all living the dream really, we as landowners have it made compared to those who are hunting public.

 

[Satchmo]

:) I hear you brother
If I can't pee wherever I choose on my place...then I'm living in the wrong place

Exactly Stu. Last summer up at the shack, the wife asked me to quit peeing off the deck in the middle of the night. I politely said "ok" at home I will, BUT up here it just ain't gonna happen.

I'm not too sure she could handle living in the sticks. 35 miles to Walmart might be too much to handle. Our retirement plan (a ways off) is to split up the year between Nimrod, Kabetogama, and our current home. We'll see!

 

[wiscwhip]

we as landowners have it made compared to those who are hunting public.

And unless you've hunted public land in the last 5 years or so, you have no idea how much better you have it. I hope to rejoin the ranks of those that "have it made" in the coming years, or at least hoping the youngest marries an Iowa farmboy!:eek:

 

[scott44]

You're young. Wait until driving when its dark isn't as much "fun" as it used to be :eek::D

Be honest...isn't part of the allure/getting away feeling due to the "romanticism" of what the thought of living at camp/your land may be like?

I hear you on the night driving Stu, I started a new job the first of the year and its swing shift days and mids, I hate driving at night now.

 

[bwoods11]

Stu---You may be surprised how this mild winter and cutting back on doe permits will improve your area. I can tell you from first hand experience that Todd County can produce lots of deer and some giants. It would help if we tweaked the regs, but I will predict that next year you will more deer.

 

[wiscwhip]

Satchmo...I hear you about the wife being able to live in such a setting. Fortunately for me, my wife was born and raised on a farm in southern MN. She never had the "amenities" until she went to college in St. Cloud...it's been pretty easy for her to adapt to this place. In the future, I'm hoping she can adapt to living in some other state :)

If the DNR wasn't so F'd up, you could stay in MN and just move back south to Houston Co. and have pretty good hunting?

 

[foggy]

I still cling to ideas of the old hunting camps we had "with the boys". Had allot of fun in tents and campers and playing poker all night and guzzling gallons of beer.......just like the yoopers. Those days are long-gone now. My family hole's up at our lake-home and we drive 10 minutes to my land to hunt. I am going to get a shack of some sort on that land this summer - just to do lunch and take a nap. But, I think a warm shower and the recliner will trump a nite in the deer shack these days. Maybe my grandsons will want to spend some time at the new deer shack. :)

 

[foggy]

Ummm...not so much. I am 2.5 hours from the grandbabies and I dread that drive every time we go see them or pick them up for a week, mainly because I know I have to make the drive back at some point!

Drove to the Phoenix Open across the city yesterday morning. Stop and go traffic for two hours to get there. ARGH!. Was fun to watch tho. LOTS of traffic with the Super Bowl stuff going on and the Open Golf tourney in town.....crazy busy.

THEN, after the golf tourney, had to drive back in the rain and dark. 80 mph speeds one minute......dead stop the next minute.....for 1.5 hours. YIKES! Horrible drive home. Driving in the rain in the dark and under those conditions is insane. Two or three close calls. Glad that drive is over.

 

[OkieKubota]

I have said this before in other threads in other places but I will say it again... If you are a non-resident landowner and think you'r sanctuary is pristine all year long until you can get there for a week of deer season I am afraid you would be sorely mistaken... It's like you paying big bucks for a week at "Disneyland" because you live somewhere else but for the folks that live around "Disneyland" it is free everyday of the year except for 1 week unless you have a good neighbor who will keep an eye on it but if he is keeping that good an eye on it he is disturbing "your" sanctuary instead of someone else unless he is just a farmer doing his daily deal...

Only reason I can avaoid that scenario is I live/work close enough to show up at any time on our place and the neighbors know it. I may be there at lunch, I may be there after work, before work, take random days off and am there all day from daylight until dark. Really good fence helps... I am like a farmer, I work on the place all the time but the big deer are still there and even after killing 3 very good deer this past fall between my wife and I we have a great crop of leftovers that are going to be as good as or better than what we got this last fall... If you make the deer feel like everytime you are in the woods you are "hunting" them they will respond in kind but if you are just doing normal everyday stuff they get used to it just like you being an old farmer that has ol' mossyhorns living out behind the barn...

 

[bwoods11]

I have said this before in other threads in other places but I will say it again... If you are a non-resident landowner and think you'r sanctuary is pristine all year long until you can get there for a week of deer season I am afraid you would be sorely mistaken... It's like you paying big bucks for a week at "Disneyland" because you live somewhere else but for the folks that live around "Disneyland" it is free everyday of the year except for 1 week unless you have a good neighbor who will keep an eye on it but if he is keeping that good an eye on it he is disturbing "your" sanctuary instead of someone else unless he is just a farmer doing his daily deal...

Only reason I can avaoid that scenario is I live/work close enough to show up at any time on our place and the neighbors know it. I may be there at lunch, I may be there after work, before work, take random days off and am there all day from daylight until dark. Really good fence helps... I am like a farmer, I work on the place all the time but the big deer are still there and even after killing 3 very good deer this past fall between my wife and I we have a great crop of leftovers that are going to be as good as or better than what we got this last fall... If you make the deer feel like everytime you are in the woods you are "hunting" them they will respond in kind but if you are just doing normal everyday stuff they get used to it just like you being an old farmer that has ol' mossyhorns living out behind the barn...

That's why you have a local friend watch it, or have 6-8 well hidden cameras. It is not that hard really, and from the daytime pictures of bucks I know they are not being hunted or pressured or they would not be moving every day middle of the day.

 

[Satchmo]

Yah hunting camp back in the day was a real learning experience. My dad started hauling me with at 11 years old. We would head up north to Talmoon MN in an old bread van with all my dads drunkin buddies in the back. There were never any deer back then but it didn't matter to these guys. My old Man and his buddies just wanted to hit the bars like the Snowshoe Inn and the Cannibal Junction anyways. The locals would welcome them in and then try and start trouble with them. Then I got a front row seat at the bar sipping on my Orange Crush, to the old man and his buddies beating the living piss out of these guys. Mostly Bowstring Injuns, that were drunk. Must have been fun for all, because we went back year after year for the revenge of wounded knee my pops called it!:eek:

Sounds like my college days in Bemidji!

 

[Satchmo]

Satchmo...I hear you about the wife being able to live in such a setting. Fortunately for me, my wife was born and raised on a farm in southern MN. She never had the "amenities" until she went to college in St. Cloud...it's been pretty easy for her to adapt to this place. In the future, I'm hoping she can adapt to living in some other state :)

Yea, the bride is just too much of a people person. She needs lots of human contact. Me? I don't mind driving the 3 hours to the shack with the radio OFF and just sitting on the porch once in a while doin' nothin'.

 

[OkieKubota]

That's why you have a local friend watch it, or have 6-8 well hidden cameras. It is not that hard really, and from the daytime pictures of bucks I know they are not being hunted or pressured or they would not be moving every day middle of the day.

First you have to have a local friend...

Buying land 2 states away you usually don't have that... We had a guy buy a 400 acre block of land near where I grew up years ago that got a neighbor to watch it for him but the neighbor just told the folks when the landowner would be down so "don't let him catch you in there"...

Cameras are a useful tool and as long as you realize they are a tool and not a presence you will be fine...

 

[BJE80]

You guys must have a much bigger tresspassing problem down there Okie.

 

[OkieKubota]

Not so much nowadays... The 80 we bought which was 1 year ago to the day used to be hunted by the neighbors without permission from the previous landowner because they never had a presence there. We have had no issues whatsoever since that fence went into place last february but I am there every couple of days if not everyday as well...

Back to topic - I have lived full time on the land I grew up on for most of my life and I still find things to do almost dailey on it. I could not imagine not being able to jump up in the middle of "Wheel of Fortune" and running out to do something habitat related on a whim. Heck being 35 minutes away from our north 80 is a huge PITA sometimes...

 

[bwoods11]

I think what Okie is saying applies to many properties in many states. If you think your place isn't getting used by the locals when you're not around...I think you're likely kidding yourselves.

Depends on the situation, I would encourage anyone buying in an area two hours away or more to really check out the situation and prepare to have someone watch over the farm. We did catch one trespasser by camera and my friend caught him at the gate. Warning first time, second time we were calling the warden. No problems since.

The property I have is completely fenced, which I would highly recommend, and full of cameras. Okie might be correct, if the landowner does not prepare for this situation properly.