Buying Hunting Land in Pine County, Minnesota

Nemadji and Chengwatana state forests: well over 120,000 combined acres

Nemadji State Forest, at 92,924 acres located primarily within Pine County, is one of the larger state forests in this part of Minnesota, and the Minnesota DNR lists hunting, fishing and boating on its lakes, birdwatching, and dispersed camping among its primary recreational uses. A short distance east, Chengwatana State Forest -- 29,039 acres spanning Pine and Chisago counties, roughly 12 miles east of Pine City -- adds overnight camping at the Snake River Campground, hiking, snowmobiling, horseback riding along the Willard Munger State Trail, and ATV/OHV riding to the mix, alongside hunting access. Together, these two forests put well over 120,000 acres of public land in or bordering Pine County, a meaningfully large hunting-land base for anyone evaluating a private parcel nearby for its proximity to public hunting ground.

For a buyer, proximity to either forest boundary can be a genuine plus for recreational or hunting-focused land -- easy access to a large public hunting area without owning it outright -- but it also means a nearby private parcel may see more hunting-season traffic on adjacent public roads and trails than a similarly situated parcel farther from either forest. Confirm a specific parcel's exact distance from the mapped forest boundary with Pine County GIS or the DNR before assuming a listing's description of 'borders state land' is precise.

Recent DNR trail changes restrict ATV/OHV access for hunters, including recovering game

The Minnesota DNR conducted a trail-designation review across several state forests in this part of east-central Minnesota -- Nemadji, General Andrews, Chengwatana, and St. Croix -- that took effect January 1 of a recent year, designating some new off-highway vehicle trails and hunter walking trails while undesignating others. The practical, on-the-ground result reported at the time: certain areas that were previously open to ATV or other off-highway-vehicle access for hunters became off-limits to that kind of vehicle travel, and hunters and trappers traveling by off-highway vehicle are barred from going off-trail or using an undesignated trail even for the specific purpose of retrieving downed game.

That last point is worth underlining for anyone planning to hunt on or near Nemadji or Chengwatana: a legal ATV trail for getting into a hunting area does not automatically mean legal ATV access for tracking and hauling out game once it's down, if that pursuit would require leaving a designated trail. Before a hunting season, confirm the current, up-to-date trail designations directly with the DNR forestry office managing the specific forest -- trail designations are the kind of detail that can change from one review cycle to the next, and an older paper map or a prior year's app data may not reflect the current rules.

What this means for your purchase

For land near either Nemadji or Chengwatana state forest, confirm the exact forest boundary and the parcel's actual distance from it with Pine County GIS or the DNR, rather than relying on a listing's general description. If ATV or OHV access is part of your hunting plan -- getting into the area, or getting game out of it -- check the DNR's current trail designations for the specific forest before assuming a particular route or method is still legal, given the DNR's recent, area-wide review of designated trails. And because Pine County is, per the hub, an actively growing county along the I-35 corridor, it's worth asking the county directly whether any current or pending development near a specific forest-adjacent parcel could affect access or noise levels over the next several years.