Since I'm new to hunting I'd probably fall in a thought-process where "quantity has a quality all of its own". Getting out there and having an opportunity to put meat in the freezer, every deer would be a trophy to me. Sort of like when I've gone deep sea fishing. Our captain would ask if we want to fish for X, my first question is always "is it good eating?" I imagine that at some point I'd grow to the stage where I'd focus extra attention on getting a trophy to mount on the wall.

I think that the ability get within a 6-7 hour drive of a lot of family members makes the Raliegh/Durham area appealing. I did look at Lexington KY and also Pittsburgh PA (good deer hunting state BTW), but their economies didn't seem strong enough. Raliegh/Durham has a fair number of opportunities in my field - Applications Development & Integration management. I hope this career has a couple more decades in it, before they ship all the jobs off to India.

If the brother's-in-law in KY, GA, or VA were more interested in hunting I could always drive over/up and hunt with them!

You're right about the lack of an income tax in Texas. I think that their property tax might make up for it though. They get you one way or the other! [:@]