Hay guys I might be taking a job in the Richmond Virginia area. What kind of hunting and fishing is available in the area?

I moved here about 6 months ago from a fairly wide open hunting environment in SW Kansas & needless to say this is a bit of a culture shock. You need to understand that it is like living in an anthill, there are millions of people living here in this surrounding area & it has been settled & populated for almost 400 years, so don't expect "wilderness", even when you can finally get out of a town there is still a house about every 50 yards, in every direction!!
Now that I have beaten up on the area, there is a good hunting attitude in the area, there is a tremendous amount of deer hunting, the deer aren't the size that I was used to coming from a "big deer" area like SW Kansas, but there are lots of them. Every county has a different set of laws concerning rifle vs. shotgun deer hunting. there is a lot of ground hog varminting, I have heard of a bit of bear hunting, there is fantastic waterfowl hunting. There is absololutely no upland game, the quail are all gone (my bird dogs have become porch dogs!!). The trick is to find locals that hunt & have permission, cause you ain't gonna just wander out & go hunting.
Don't discount this one cause it is really fun, there is a tremendous amount of squirrel hunting & you can do it in a gentlemanly manner. LOL! you don't have to get up early, don't have to carry a lot of gear, if the weather gets icky you just quit for the day.
As I said I moved here 6 months ago from a rural area & I still feel claustraphobic about all of the people. On the upside there is a lot of trapshooting, skeet shooting, sporting clays & rifle/pistol range shooting, but you will swallow your tongue when you find out the cost to join a shooting "club".
I moved here for professional reasons & will likely take the first advancement opportunity to get back out west. It is not awful here by any means, the local is beautiful, but there are way too many people for me & I would guess that being from alaska you will be even more of a novelty to these folks than I am being a cowboy.

Mike

Most of the hunting around here is done thru hunting clubs. Almost all the available land is tied up by someone, no BLM type ares around Richmond.

There are ALOT of deer, and as already stated, more laws around what is legal to shoot with then anywhere else I've lived (SD, UT, IL). Doe season just ended last week and the boys were stackin 'em like chord wood. Waterfowl hunting is real good - woodduck were fun to hunt here for a boy originally from the midwest where they were rare. The fishing is supposed to be good, lots of bass and catfish in around here. If you want to fish for samon or tuna in the ocean, the coast is less than a couple hours away. I only drown worms with the kids, so others can give you a better idea.

Brad

I hunt deer on Fort A.P.Hill which is a big Army base about 40 miles north of Richmond. It's an open base, so the general public can hunt. Costs about $40 for the base permit in addition to the normal license. You also have to sit through the base safety lecture. Lots of deer there, but the body weight on deer in Va is not nearly what it is back in my native Colorado. But, when you are stationed in Va, you hunt in Va.

There is also some hunting for free-range Sika deer on Chincoteaque National Wildlife Refuge, but it's quite a ways from Richmond. I personnaly have'nt drawn the tag yet, but if you get it you can take 5 either sex Sika on this special hunt in addition to the normal limit which is 6 whitetails.

Mac

Thanks for the info guys.
I really love varmint and predator hunting. Maybe there will be some ground hogs and a coyote or two if I can find some places.
When you have been shooting moose for 20 years most anything in the lower 48 looks small.

I can sympathise with ibexebi and 35nut. I moved to northern Virginia (which most Virginians will tell you is not really Virginia anyways about four years ago from Alaska and I am still suffering from hunting culture shock. Some seasons I almost stop hunting... I really miss the quality wild bird upland hunting in Alaska and Hawaii where you can have access to great bird hunting for the price of a liscense and gas.

As was earlier said there are things to get used to. I lived most my life in Alaska and Hawaii so the mid-Atlantic region was a shock. No upland birds, only hunting preserves which I've found to be pricely and (at least the ones I've been to) not particularly challenging... Deer are small, but numerous. Public land is rather few and far between, with lots of hunting pressure (at least in the ones near the big cities) and not much deer. In most of the areas arround DC, (I imagine Richmond), and Baltimore (in MD) its "pay to play", with access to private land going for $200-300 a day for deer, and $175 for waterfowl!!! I'd really like to get some access to waterfowl land, but no luck so far. Also, turkey and squirel hunting is pretty good on public land.

There are hunt clubs and leases you can join in on that make it more reasonable but its an old boy system so it takes some time. Getting on private land make a different, in particular if you can get on land arround agricultural areas and urban areas. The whole Washington-Baltimore area is infested with deer in the urban and sub-urban areas. This last year I got invited to hunt on a friend of a friend's land and the deer were so thick that we got three in three hours! Vast difference than the public land I normally hunt, and this was less than an hour's drive from Washington, DC. As said earlier too, be aware of the different county laws on rifles, shotguns, etc.

I've found after years on spot and stalk and upland bird hunting, its hard to adapt to sedintary stand hunting culture that exists in this area. Not meaning to knock hunters here, its just something different for me.