where to move?

[Pruski2]

thanks a bunch for all of the info...  i have a ton of soul searching and job hunting to do.

Thanks, Steve

[recurve_shooter]

Originally posted by Sipsey River:
You should probably skip Alabama. There are a lot of places to hunt, but everyone hunts, most guys kill everything that is brown. Bucks don't have much of a chance to grow big.

Pretty much the same here in Georgia, unfortunately.  We may not have as high a percentage of hunters vs population, but with the fragmented land base, long seasons, and high hunting pressure, most bucks are killed long before they mature.  

[john fletch]

Leatherneck, it was my dream too, and I was born and raised here!

One of the big problems with Montana now is the huge number of people who brought money in, raised the price of land and housing and have left the locals with not enough job base of high paying jobs to sustain a good economy.  Add to that what all the liberal environmental whackos have done to business, and a huge numbers of jobs and businesses went under.

Now it seems to be relegated to a servie and tourist economy.  I think the unemployment here in Kalispell will be shown to be over 10% by the end of the month.  I overbuilt myself and had to keep working.  My house has now devalued over 30% since it was new less than 3 years ago.

Add to that the DF&W has said the deer and elk population has gone way down.  Tried to blame that on winter kills but the past 5 winters have been abnormally mild.  The real killer is the reintroduced wolves.

Fishing has also fallen off, now they want to poison out all the non indigenous species and try to reintroduce native species only.

Sure is not like it was when I was a kid, but I thank the LORD I am alive and in Montana anyway, because I think it is actually going to be better here than many other states very soon.

[knife river]

I've heard it said for many years that Montana's most valuable export was it's bright, young minds.  Good-paying jobs have always been scarce.

Fletcher, when I go back to the Flathead, I don't know whether to cry or puke.  I'm not sure that the "liberal environmental whackos" you mentioned did enough to save the valley.  And as for what they did to business, you might remember what some of the businesses did to the environment and to people.  I'm thinking specifically of the huge problems in Libby.  And if the whackos hadn't won in court, the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness area (one of my favorite hunting spots and one of the most beautiful places on earth) would be an open-pit gold mine.

There's good arguments to made on both sides and plenty of lessons to be learned.  Thankfully, there's also room to respectfully disagree.  I'll get moved back up there one of these days and we'll sit down and solve all the world's problems.        

[Gehrke145]

I'm in Colorado now I like it.  Cost of living is high.  I'll stay here until I get me goat and sheep tag then I'll be starting one of these threads agian lol.

[sharps4590]

We pulled up stakes 9 years ago and moved to Wyoming.  Felt like I finally got home.  Welp...Wyoming was great, loved the people, country, hunting, fishing and skiing, made good money and didn't have to kill myself doing it, had a nice house paid for, wife liked it, winters didn't bother me or the wife, but.....it was also 1600 miles from family and a lifetime of friends.  Mom got sick and died while we were there.  We came back for a lot of funerals.  Might give careful consideration to those things.

Now we're back in south central Missouri and have most of what we had in Wyoming except for....yea, right.  Oh well, it's home and I'll die here.  House is still paid for and we built this one, business is holding its own.

I won't relate my experiences in Connecticut....they were none good...I'd flee there too but from where you are I'd look into Vermont or Maine.  I particularly like Maine, used to bear hunt, fish and ski up there.  Lots of good fishin' and huntin' in both places and if you have family the trip back won't be long.  

Think long and hard about the west.  Hunting in Montana or Wyoming for a week or so is one heck of a lot different than living there, especially coming from the east coast.  My wife are both farm raised and we spent so much time in Colorado and Wyoming before moving there that we were almost permanent party anyway.  For us it was almost as if we just moved to a different set of friends and country.  Still, there were some things to get used to.  Such as driving two hours to shop, the same two hours to eat a meal out in a nice restuarant.....not any better food....merely nicer surroundings.  One ordered lots of stuff because we didn't jump into the Cherokee and run to Idaho Falls when you needed something.  We have always been planners and stockpilers of groceries so really none of those things were an issue for us....just a continuation of how we lived on the farm in Missouri....but lots of folks we knew had some real problems with the remoteness.

Good luck with your decision.  It's both exciting and a mite intimidating.

Vic