Where would you move to be a beagler?

[New York Hillbilly]

New York? As a life long New Yorker I can tell you first hand it is NOT the place to be. Deer, turkey and fishing galore, but our hare hunting is spotty at best. The habitat sucks, thanks to the big money NYC crowd control over the Adirondack's, who don't believe in harvesting any trees. The cottontail hunting has gone down hill because so much land is posted that you have to head off the hounds at every turn or risk wissing someone off and getting in a shouting match. And if this were not enough the New York taxes are second to NONE so if you own anything at all your lucky if you can still afford feed, hunting license, ammunition and all else that goes along with it. For the many years now that I have been on this board (and those like it) I have been talking about the day I can get out. With my daughter getting married next October I am stuck here for about a year more, after that, this nurse practitioner is OUTTA here! Lets compare tax bills and then have the same discussion. Anyone out there paying 10,000$ a year property tax, or 3.32 a gallon for gas or how about my son wanting to come home to hunt our own property but not unless he was willing to pay 140$ for a hunting license since he moved out of state weeks earlier to get a job. ? New York...................NOT! The best thing to hunt in New York is a new place to live.
NYH

[TC]

My Wife and I had this Conversation about 5 years ago We were living in Oregon at that time moved to Kentucky

[gunho]

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS 10 min.from ky,30 from mo.lot of land for rabbits

[Fleetwood]

The Good Ol' North State. North by gosh Carolina!

[HAREHOUND]

i would move up between rabbit fever and jim matuszewski. but that is only about an hour north so i'm good where i'm at for now. i do have hare and cottontail on my own land behind the house which is great for training, but the premium hare hunting is a little north.

[Bev]

New York? As a life long New Yorker I can tell you first hand it is NOT the place to be. Deer, turkey and fishing galore, but our hare hunting is spotty at best. The habitat sucks, thanks to the big money NYC crowd control over the Adirondack's, who don't believe in harvesting any trees. The cottontail hunting has gone down hill because so much land is posted that you have to head off the hounds at every turn or risk wissing someone off and getting in a shouting match. And if this were not enough the New York taxes are second to NONE so if you own anything at all your lucky if you can still afford feed, hunting license, ammunition and all else that goes along with it. For the many years now that I have been on this board (and those like it) I have been talking about the day I can get out. With my daughter getting married next October I am stuck here for about a year more, after that, this nurse practitioner is OUTTA here! Lets compare tax bills and then have the same discussion. Anyone out there paying 10,000$ a year property tax, or 3.32 a gallon for gas or how about my son wanting to come home to hunt our own property but not unless he was willing to pay 140$ for a hunting license since he moved out of state weeks earlier to get a job. ? New York...................NOT! The best thing to hunt in New York is a new place to live.
NYH

It's easy to get out of New York; nurses are needed everywhere, so you shouldn't have much trouble.

I'm not so much in need of the kill these days. For me -- at my stage in life, the goal is not to work full-time, there's little incentive to own any property -- I won't live long enough to pay it off, I just want accessibility to running. Upstate New York would put me within an hour or two of 5 different beagle clubs, but more importantly, the fox pens across the river. Indiana is probably one of the easier places to live, reasonable cost of living, etc., but there's not much to look at here except soybeans and cornfields, and probably not 3 lakes in the whole state that aren't man-made, or fished to death. You'll share your deer hunting spot with 8 other guys you've never seen before; you may even have to run them out of your stand, but only on opening day. After they've killed their limit they'll move on. If you like walking fencerows, frozen corn stubble, and begging for places to run/hunt, then Indiana's your place.

[foxxy]

New York? If you like walking fencerows, frozen corn stubble, and begging for places to run/hunt, then Indiana's your place.

southern part aint that bad

[intrepid]

Northwest Wi.

[Dan Johnson]

I like it right where I am. I can run cottontail or hare every day of the week.
But if I did move it would be Mich. U.P.

[New York Hillbilly]

Hey Bev,
New York will welcome you with open arms I am sure. I have said it before and will again; New York is one of the most beautiful states in the country and has fishing and hunting like few others. The problem is however being able to afford to live here, and the absolute stranglehold NYC has over the rest of the state. A city of 13 million or so people, where there are a handful are super rich, and many millions making up the rest that are sucking off the system in one form or another and don't want the check to run out, so they keep putting politicians in office that push that agenda. With the sad state of our economy, there are millions more here "upstate" (some happily)surviving on government handouts as well, adding to those numbers.

Wealthy liberals in power, keeping their power by spoon feeding voters in numbers that so far out number the much fewer hard working, middle class New Yorkers. Living in Upstate New York is one of the the cruelest examples of taxation without representation in our history. And guess what? The super liberal mentality of the rich NYC types are no friend to gun ownership, hunting and fishing, or cutting down any trees that they see as pretty as they surround their multi-million dollars "camps" in the Adirondack Park. They have no idea what land management for wildlife habitat involves and could not care less if you or I ever hunt again.

Industry and citizens have fled this state now for the past forty years that I have been watching, thanks to corrupt politics and unions, oppressive taxes and utility costs adding to the state of despondency. In our past governors election the media intentionally buried the biggest political news story out there when they smeared and discredited the republican candidate calling him, "nuts", a "homophobe", and a "racist", in their desperate but winning strategy to put yet another NYC man in the "throne'. I'm not saying the guy was not a "live wire" but the biggest story should have been the 1.5 million votes he got by saying he would "take a bat to Albany" to "clean out the corruption". 1.5 million people cannot be dismissed as something insignificant. What if the "mere" million and a half people who voted for the "bat man" decided to show exactly how large a number and statement that was, by all taking buses at the same time into Albany for a rally?

The short story is, Bev, you are right that nurses are needed everywhere. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner now preparing for my doctorate, I do not fear for finding work. But, I resent like hell what has happened to such a great state that deserves so much better, and for the policies that have driven my friends, family and soon my children away to start lives elsewhere. I hope our NYC governor turns out to be a great man, true to his word and I wish him all the best. But, based on past experience, I am not going to hold my breath, or tongue.

If you don't want to work "full time", "don't want to own anything", enjoy running on "club" grounds and want to run fox across the river (I'm assuming the St.Lawrence) then New York is just the place for you. As far as Indiana goes, I was treated to some of the nicest people, hospitality, and running imaginable a couple of times, years ago at an ARHA event called "Three Rivers Beagle Club". Wide open lands, rabbits that ran like deer, lots of good food, laughter and tall tales. I'm cool with Indiana!

Peace!
NYH

[rabbitsmoker]

The reason i picked okla for hunting instead up north is since i have gotten older i am a fair weather hunter i used to could take the cold weather but now i cant and here in okla 30-40 in the winter is just right to hunt with very little snow Friend told me in conn water froze in oct and didnt thaw till march burrrr... and didnt see the ground till april

[Bev]

NYH, and I've had some of the best times of my beagling life along both sides of that river. Fun is where you allow it to happen I suppose. I can tell you, you won't find that the politics, the non-productive populace living off the taxpayers' backs, and anti-hunting agendas are any less present or any more palatable in Indianapolis, (or any other large city) so if you head this way, you may want to hang south toward the strip mines and hope to find gainful employment. Maybe around the booming metropolis of Evansville. Bring your tick spray and snakebite kit. I hear the IDNR copter-dropped some timber rattlers in burlap bags down there a few years back to help with rodent control. Indiana used to be rich in tradition of putting hounds on fox. Now you can't trap one here, and HSUS are beating our politicians and IDNR up so badly that they've almost got them convinced to make pen owners put holes in their fences to allow the fox, coyotes, and rabbits -- yes rabbits, to escape if they need to. I don't know that any place is better than another. You simply trade off different positives and negatives, and keeping our rights to hunt, fish and take game is a fight anywhere you go. Look at Maine -- and they don't have a NYC equivalent. The people just turned their backs for a second and it was done. It's tough everywhere.

I guess the sums of our ambitions are that at some point everybody needs a change. You're winding up and I'm winding down. If one had asked where would I move to write books, my answer would be the Outer Banks of North Carolina. But the original question was asked, where would I move to be a beagler. For me it would be Upstate New York. I can be at Delmer Seale's Fox pen in Nappanee, Ontario in approximately 2 hours.

[Maine Hunter]

Not being in on trials I just need lots of rabbit that is about 2-3 hours north of my S.Maine location.

[jimd]

michigans u.p. love it up there

[mn_beagleboy]

Move here and you will be in Jack Rabbit Heaven

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBOLcV2tRU