I know the area you live in, Claybird, and it is about as pretty and rural as one is going to get in Jersey, at least north of Trenton. I lived in Hudson County more years than I'd like to admit. And I grew up in Northampton County.
If I were in your shoes, I might well consider just hopping over the Delaware into PA to live, and travelling to hunt as much or as little as you want. I say that for a couple reasons. At your age, you are not likely to hunt every day, and there are 6 or 9 months of the year when the only hunting you'll do will be clays. But hunting/shooting (or any avocation) done every day will get tired inside of a year. You, quite reasonably, want to be free from the PRNJ and it's silly laws, which makes eminent sense. But, moving to a whole new region will impose some level of "transplant shock" on anyone. It's very stressful - one does not recognize just how much local knowledge one develops until one moves to a wholly new area. Speaking from my experience, at the proper time of year I could come to your neighborhood and know where I could find wild raspberries, walnuts, or a good mechanic, or know which judge I should get a traffic ticket heard by or which sawbones to avoid, or even just where to find a decent cup of coffee, a lot more quickly than I could in Maine where I have lived for several years. And while I've made a lot of new friends in Maine, leaving all my old ones behind in Jersey was not easy, and I still stay in touch with them.
I'm a couple decades younger than you, and it was hard enough for me when I packed up and moved to Maine. One builds even more of that local knowledge and local connection as one ages and ripping it all out can have unintended adverse consequences.
If I were in your shoes, I would just jump the river, live simple, enjoy the more sensible laws of PA (and the SGLs), and travel to all those neat places the other folks on this thread have been pitching. Then again, you might do better with a totally fresh start. YMMV.
Last edited by Dave in Maine; 03/14/12 10:22 PM.
