Hunting Land in Craig County, Virginia

A county where public forest, not private acreage, dominates the landscape

Craig County covers about 328 square miles in the Allegheny Mountains, and roughly 53% of that land -- more than 112,000 acres -- is National or State Forest, per a 2023 Virginia Cooperative Extension situation analysis of the county. That single fact reshapes what buying hunting land in Craig actually means: rather than a market built around large private tracts stitched together across an open landscape, much of the county's hunting opportunity sits on land the public already has access to, and private parcels tend to be smaller, scattered inholdings or edge-of-forest tracts rather than sprawling private hunting estates.

Named public tracts worth knowing if you hunt or buy nearby

Several specific, named areas of the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests sit inside Craig County. Potts Arm, a 4,283-acre area, is popular with hunters, hikers, and anglers alike. Barbours Creek Wilderness, established in 1988, covers 5,382 acres of Appalachian forest and is managed primarily for black bear habitat -- a genuinely relevant detail if bear hunting is part of your plan, since wilderness-area rules (no roads, no mechanized access) differ from a standard national forest tract. The broader Barbours Creek-Shawvers Run Cluster extends across more than 25,000 acres spanning Craig County and adjoining areas, protecting black bear habitat, water quality, and backcountry hiking access. Nationally, the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests together host roughly 80% of Virginia's public hunting land and 60% of the state's brook trout streams -- a scale of public access that few Virginia counties can match, and Craig sits near the middle of it.

Hunting on these public lands follows U.S. Forest Service and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) rules rather than county rules: hunting is not permitted in designated campgrounds or developed recreation areas, and anyone running a commercial hunting or fishing outfitting operation on the National Forest needs a specific Forest Service permit. DWR's statewide quota-hunt program -- exclusive, permitted access to a managed wildlife area on specific hunt days, with one drawn hunter allowed to bring up to two guests -- may apply to specific managed areas; confirm current quota-hunt tract boundaries and dates directly with DWR before planning a season around a specific public tract.

What this means if you're buying hunting land in Craig County

A private tract that borders or sits near GW&J National Forest land, Barbours Creek Wilderness, or the Barbours Creek-Shawvers Run Cluster often commands a premium precisely because of that adjacency -- effectively extending your hunting range onto adjoining public acreage without requiring you to own it. But that same adjacency comes with real due-diligence steps a buyer should not skip: confirm the exact surveyed boundary between your private parcel and the adjoining public land (unmarked or unclear boundary lines between private and Forest Service land are a genuine, recurring issue in mountainous counties like Craig), verify whether any portion of the parcel you're buying falls inside a wilderness-area boundary (which would restrict what you personally can do on that portion, including vehicle or equipment access), and check with the county's zoning office and the DWR regional office for any additional access, road, or easement questions specific to your tract. Given Craig's overall rural, mountainous, low-population character (see this county's general overview), road access and terrain can vary significantly parcel to parcel even among tracts that look similar on a map.