Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Charlotte NC area?

What is the Charlotte area like? A quick online perusal makes me think Atlanta 40 years ago.

Good areas outside the city? Hunting, fishing and outdoors activities? Traffic? Schools?



BBQ worth a fugg?

You'll be happy with the BBQ. The hunting leaves a lot to be desired unless you get in on a lease. As for fishing I'm only a trout fisherman so nothing appealed to me there. Traffic sucks.

Charlotte is turning into a big city like you suspected. Outside of Charlotte is nice, but hunting you better have some private land or get in on a lease. Bag limits for deer are high but if you're looking to shoot big bucks it's not likely unless the lease had restrictions to let the yound ones grow. 8 point at 175lbs is a good deer. Landowners years ago found you can turn hogs into money, so get on a lease that has hogs with it. The lakes are mainly reservoirs and have some good fish. If you like to catch big fish you'll have to go offshore or learn to catfish. Good friend I've hunted with is setup for catfish and his boat rule is 10 lbs or greater gets thrown back. Big cats taste like mud and make better breeders. Not unusual for us to catch 20 fish with a couple over 25 lbs when we go out.

Been here 18 years. Not a great place for a outdoors-man. I have a place in Va hunt.

I live about 45 minutes north of Charlotte. Bbq is decent, my wife's family is from Lexington but I prefer eastern NC style which has more vinegar taste. Schools are area dependent, some good others are terrible. Lots of folks live outside Mecklenburg County and commute in. Traffic sucks at rush hours. Lots of Yankee transplants that know how to do it better and county as a whole is pretty liberal. Hunting for deer is ok if you like meat, not so much if you like antlers. Turkey can be good on the right tract. Public hunting sucks for most everything, just not enough public land with an hour of Charlotte. Good inland lake fishing. 2 hours from mountain trout, 4 hours from the coast for inshore/offshore.

If you start looking, consider surrounding counties and be willing to commute. Work requires me to cover the Charlotte area often but I can't say I enjoy it.

Too crowded. Too liberal. Traffic is horrible now. Mecklenburg Co. taxes are through the roof. Good hunting is mostly in SC which is not a deal-killer. Fishing is so-so to good, not great.

I live 15 miles east of Charlotte... Been here 31 years....Lots of lakes with good fishing....There is quite a bit of public land 50,645 thousand acres within 50 miles....I kill several Deer every year on Game lands....There are several nice bucks taken off the Game land every year...Traffic sucks.... Other than than not to bad...

Traffic is terrible, they are always working on the roads and by the time they get them finished the traffic has outgrown the new construction.

I grew up about 45 miles east of Charlotte, my brother lives in Charlotte, and I visit often.

Comments that have been made here are spot on, except that one whack job who likes Eastern style BBQ compared to Lexington style.

When it comes to BBQ, there are five main styles - Texas, Memphis, KC, Eastern, Lexington (we don’t count SC’s mustard BS). NC has two of them. No other state can say that. That’s because the state bird of NC is the pig.

I spent most of a week in Charlotte last month, was glad to get back to Charleston...somehow a less intense “big city” feel here. I will be bck up there again end of this month, so what are some of the good bbq places?

Lexington is too dry and I grew up eating it all the time.... Good thing there is a Smithfield BBQ in Charlotte now by the airport. I still eat Lexington style alot but I have to lay the vinegar based dip and Texas Pete to it.

To the OP, the surrounding areas are nice but I wouldn't live in Mecklenburg. Get over 30 min outside Charlotte and it gets pretty rural.

Follow your nose and don’t be afraid to go into a seedy looking establishment.

Thanks for the feedback!

Coming from W Washington and dealing with I5, I can’t believe Charlotte area traffic wouldn’t be an improvement. Haven’t been through there in years though.

As to BBQ, I’m an Eastern style fan if given my druthers. Won’t turn any down though!

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Seattle area as well as the Charlotte area. I’d take Seattle.

Seattle has been big forever and they are aware of how to handle such challenges. Charlotte has grown like kudzu over the last 10 years and it’s insane. They can’t keep up.

Moved to Mooresville, NC in 1999 from God's country Sweet Home Alabama in 1999. Good schools for our then early elementary aged children according to research. Low crime rate, and area growth has brought new everything. Public schools still good far as i know and all the shopping I need to do, doctors I need to see, banks I need to use and restaurants I need to frequent are plentiful. The neighborhood we live in is populated by native North Carolinians and immigrants in a range from the Deep South to the Northeast. Most northern versions from New York, New Jersey, and Ohio.

Fishing on the local Lake Norman proved to be nothing near what I was accustomed to in central Alabama. Plus the number of assholz on the water is nothing like I have ever encountered. Sorry for the jab to the decent Yankees out there, but northern immigrants here are mostly responsible based on personal contact. Many seem determined to create the same chithole here as the one they left. Time does not permit discussion of the conflicts I have personally had. I sold my boat and kissed all that good bye. More 30' plus boats on Norman than any freshwater reservoir I've personally navigated. And most are piloted by anal attitude immigrants that would be shot were it not illegal. However I'm told fishing has improved with the bait bucket introduction of blue backed herring and Alabama spotted bass, along with state stocking of hybrid stripers.

Now, barbecue. As much as Eastern Style BBQ aka North Carolina style is promoted, those doing the promoting for the most part have had little if any contact with Southern or Texas barbeque. I've hit the joints that get the high praises and the wannabes as well. During my life before and after North Carolina, I have frequented barbeque joints not only throughout the great state of Alabama, but Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, North Florida and parts of Georgia. There is no barbeque in North Carolina with the rare exception of artisans that learned or grew up knowing the skills required to cook pork over a wood fire and properly sauce it somewhere outside North Carolina. What is called "Eastern Style" sauce here I call "baste". I've had quite a few good baked pork sandwiches with vinegar dressing but no true Southern barbeque.

Quite frankly I can personally wood fire cook barbequed pork shoulder and sauce it with my own recipe sauce, and totally embarrass the so called best barbeque joints North Carolina has to offer. If you drive by XYZ Barbeque and there ain't no hickory smoke coming out the chimney what use is there in even stopping?

So that's my story. Didn't mean to write book but seems I may have.

Like you said, Atlanta 40 years ago.

I am from Atlanta and today I live in a good place, FAR AWAY from Atlanta, about 250 miles away.
I always heard Charlotte was striving to be another Atlanta, Atlanta was the Charlotte role model, just a few hours away, down Interstate 85.

Well, look what you ask for Charlotte, you might just get it. Traffic so bad you can't stand it, massive crime, and little sense of history, as any building over 30 years old is torn down so a new one can be built.

If you like high crime, liberal local gov and school boards, congestion, the God awful Panthers, and road construction you should feel at home.

Charlotte sucks.

Atlanta of 30 years ago would be a good description. Of any place to live in NC, Charlotte would be last on my list. We natives don't even consider Charlotte part of our state.

I live about an hour and a half NW of Charlotte. It is just another urban sewer with high crime, liberal politics, and terrible traffic.

I'd rather be beat than to have to even drive thru Charlotte and I'd rather live under a bridge and eat out of garbage cans than to live there.

I'm glad opinions are like [bleep], everybody has one. My preference is Eastern, but I do like the red slaw. Also SC has Eastern and Mustard, I don't eat mustard as I much prefer vinegar sauce.

As for Charlotte , it is the next ATL, but Greenville, SC(where I live) is trying it's best to catch Charlotte.