Illinois Gun Deer Season

[allaboutshooting]

Hey Clark, have you seen the forecast for 2nd shotgun season?  Looks like it's time to bundle up!

It looks terrible! Wet, cold and miserable after a  week of warm and dry weather. Maybe they'll be wrong but at any rate, I have my wet weather gear out an ready.

I say a really nice buck just north of the house tonight, along with 2 slick does.

Good luck to you this weekend.

Thanks,
Clark

[VaTuRkStOmPeR]

Clark, with a large population of deer I don't understand why the short season. we have over two months for gun season in georgia. good luck.

Gary

Gun hunting and trophy deer don't mix.

Additionally, the EHD outbreak in Illinois has substantially reduced the population. Estimates range from 40-60% of the herd has perished between the high hunter volume, the increased doe tag allocation and EHD.

Illinois is not the deer hunter's paradise it was back in the 90s-late 2000s.

According to many trophy managers and hunters, the last thing Illinois needs is more gun hunting.

[allaboutshooting]

We've been fortunate in Southern Illinois to have thus far escaped much of the disease that has affected the deer herds in the northern and central parts of the state.

Deer here are wide ranging and the laws put into effect several years ago making it illegal to feed deer, put out salt block or other attractants have probably helped as well. Baiting has been and continues to be illegal.

The IDNR takes deer hunting seriously because it is such a big sport here. Only one antlered deer can be harvested and I think some trophy hunters at least, do let the younger bucks pass. Good nutrition and time play a major part.

Thanks,
Clark

[VaTuRkStOmPeR]

Clark, we dropped our lease there years ago so I can't speak personally but i do have friends who lease and manage whitetails all over the state.

From what I understand, the general concensus in IL is that your DNR has exploited the quality of its resource beyond sustainability.  Virtually unlimited buck tags to NR bowhunters, 2 buck tags (1 bow and 1 gun) to NR landowners and 2 buck tags to residents along with EHD has been disastrous.

The comments in this thread on AT are almost universally consistent (never happens) and the published articles shared within it might be eye opening for you.

I do realize your position in the industry may cause you to refrain from criticism but based on your last comments, you may be the only person around who thinks IL has done a good job managing that resource.  When the Illinois Taxidermist Association is talking about creating a lobby to go to the legislature and lobby against all the doe tags and buck harvest taking place, there is clearly a very real natural resource and economic problem.

Things are not rainbows and unicorns in Illinois.

http://www.archerytalk.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2134800

[allaboutshooting]

Thank you for your post and for the link. It's just not what I've personally observed here in Southern Illinois. From what I hear, Central and Northern Illinois have had a pretty tough time.

We had a meeting at John A. Logan College last year with the IDNR director and there were hunters here from all over the state. I had an opportunity to talk with them before, during and after the meeting. Things looked pretty bleak in some of those areas but I've just not seen those conditions here.

I've hunted the same ground for almost 40 years. I still see big bucks, lots of does and fawns each year. Please understand that we are in a sparsely populated area, with the Shawnee National Forest very close by. We have large stretches of crop land and few hunters per square mile, as compared to many areas in Illinois.

We do have our share of hunters who will shoot any deer that they can and there are some farmers who wish we'd wipe out the deep population entirely.

Farmers can obtain nuisance tags, shoot them year round and by law are required to leave them where they are killed.

Down here, we have not yet been overcome with landowners leasing their land to hunters. We generally hunt what we own and let a few friends and neighbors do the same. There's also a lot of public land to hunt.

The IDNR was essentially gutted by the previous administration. Funds were taken and put into the general fund, staff was reduced, no new hires were made, and no equipment was replaced.

The current director has been able to restore those funds and he actually hired some conservation police officers this year. Funds have also been made available for repair and restoration of some parks. Some of those parks had been closed for years.

Believe me, I'm not a blind supporter of any state agency. Everyone here knows my position. I can't speak for all areas of the state in any matter but I can speak for the area where I live and have hunted for several decades.

I'm also not trying to attract more hunters to the area. I have no economic or other reason to do that. Some areas, in years past, drew many people to them because of record bucks. Owners leased the land to the highest bidder. We've just never done that here, for the most part, for deer hunting and I hope we don't.

I've seen what that does. Land prices in the goose flyway were driven ridiculously  high in the 1990s. We had huge flocks of migrating geese and it was not uncommon to see a 40 acre plot, near the refuge, go for $400,000.00.

Waterfowl hunters came from all over, eager and willing to pay $150.00 or more for the opportunity just to sit in a pit and then pay a guide an additional $100.00 or more to call for them.

It was possible for the owners of those pits to cycle hunter after hunter through each day and generate an almost unbelievable income from a few holes in the ground.

When the migrating flocks "short stopped" in central Illinois, and the pits were no longer profitable,  those buyers lost the land and prices came back down to more reasonable levels.

That disaster was driven by "hunting economics" that got out of control. In the long run, it was detrimental not only to many individuals but to the to the local economy that had come to depend upon those out of area hunters.

I was told today, at a family gathering, that when it comes to hunting, I am a purist. That's probably true and I understand that's not the rule today.

Hunting opportunities are down, places to hunt are harder and harder to find  and people need a place to hunt. I understand that, I just don't like to see it become a commercial business.

We are fortunate to have thousands and thousands of public hunting areas here and the land has all kinds of wild game. I've hunted public ground for turkeys, doves, ducks and geese in years past. I know people who hunt that ground every year and with success.

Again, I don't know what it's really like in other areas but here, it's still pretty good.

Thanks,
Clark

[renegade19]

I'm originally from East Central Illinois but now live in Southern Illinois, very near Clark.  Confessing to apathy here, but I was not aware that the deer population had been devastated in my old stomping grounds.  I'll ask for some opinions back home.

I'm pretty new to deer hunting, but the hunting "down here" the last two years has been good for me.  However, I was along this year when my buddy found a legitimate monster/wall hanger floating dead in a strip pit.  No doubt that deer died of EHD. 

I heard a wide variety of stories from our first gun season that ranged from not seeing many deer to seeing tons of deer.  Guy I worked with who is well known for killing monsters tagged a legitimate 160+ buck first season.

Finally, after all of that rambling, I'm of the opinion that the Illinois DNR has in the past mismanaged many of our resources including deer, turkey, and upland game.  But, killing a trophy buck in Illinois has in my opinion never been as easy as it's portrayed on TV.  Many of those shows are filmed on locations that include high fence ranches and preserves.  That really skews what it takes to kill a wall hanger here.  My two cents!