Is it a blessing or a curse? I would think it's a good thing, but would like to hear from otherwise. Thank you.

A guy I work with leases some hunting land bordering National Forrest land. He has more than his share of issues with trespassers.

That's what I figured. If I have it, I wouldn't be living on it. I would just be periodically being on it.

X100.

Yeah. I see pros and certainly cons. Location would obviously hurt or help, depending on public access factors.

If it is accessible to hunters then they will trespass. If it isn't easily accessible then you will have more land to hunt that you don't have to pay a lease on.

Yeah. One of the properties I manage has some NF land that is favorable to the club, because it is remote. But most of the time, that probably wouldn’t be the case. I would study those factors for sure.

Curse.

i wish i had 5 acres next to a good one

Paint some purple lines on the property line and everything will be fine.

I have seen mostly positives from our experience. We live right across a Forest Service Road from a fairly large tract of Alabama Forever Wild land that is also incorporated into a Wildlife Management Area. The area across the road from us is rarely if ever hunted. I can walk right across the street and have a pretty large area to hunt and not have to worry about running into anyone else. And while the State may cut that timber one day and replant it, I don't have to worry about someone building a house across the street or putting up a pig farm or chicken houses.

Beyond the Forever Wild land is National Park Service land that is a National Preserve where there is no hunting allowed and in reality is very rarely accessed except for the few major sight seeing points along the canyon.

What this all means for us is: Lots of quiet days and evenings, and lots of wildlife. We see lots of deer, foxes, turkey, coyotes, bobcats, bears, and yes mountain lions. I have seen 3 since I have been living up here. About the only animal common to the southeast that I haven't seen up here is a hog. Thank God.

The only time we get any traffic at all is during the few deer gun hunt weekends we get in the WMA, but it ain't many. They seem to do a good job of managing the deer population up here.

I have a friend that owns a couple acres in the middle of Bankhead and he's had multiple issues with people on his place and stuff being taken.

If its good land bordering Bankhead or Oak mtn, i would say blessing, for sure

Our place bordered Talledega NF in Perry county. We didn't necessarily have issues with trespassing, but for several years people would hunt right on the line. For some reason they think private land holds better deer whereas in our case there were probably a very low number of people hunting 1000s and 1000s of acres of NF versus us hunting hard on 300 acres. In our situation there is a gas line that crosses our property and NF, people would hunt right on the line obviously watching our side, but to my knowledge there was never a deer shot over the line. To me it all depends on the situation because some of our other neighbors that were on private land were just as bad if not worse.

I had a 110 acre tract that was in the middle of state land. I did have trespassers, especially during the turkey seasons due to this property being all hardwoods. It was a Blessing when it was deer season as they only had 4, two-day hunts on the state-owned land. There was absolutely no hunting pressure on it during deer season except from us. The four hunts kept the pressure on all the land very low and we could hunt it any day we wanted to. Deer moved and acted like they were supposed to. We killed tons of deer off the property before it was sold.

Buy it. It will never get any cheaper in price. I bought a 30-acre tract 3 years ago to make a duck pond on for us to hunt. I paid two thousand an acre for it. I just turned down five thousand an acre for it this year. My wife said we had to refuse the offer due to selling other land we were being taxed on.

Appreciate the responses everyone. Just getting feelers out for when I pull the trigger.

All depends on location. If there’s a lot of other private land that prohibits easy access then I’d say go for it. If there’s an easy parking access on public close by then that would be a no in my book. If I were going to buy land next to public ground to try and maximize my hunting, I’d draw a 50 acre block on the public behind my property on a map. If there’s a public parking area or trail within a mile of that block, I’d pass.

There 77 acres for sale in Maplesvile sitting next to Oakmulgee that looks pretty good. But it also, looks to be currently land locked but with a gravel/dirt access road. But no apparent easement.

My brother has 10 acres bordered on 3 sides by a piece of state forest land that is closed to hunting. He and a buddy kill 5-7 bucks a year off of it.

I would've always wanted to own small acreage next to public land. You never know what will happen to private land. They could developed it, turn it into pasture or worse. My house sits a hundred acres and I'm worried they may start building houses.