Driving through there to IL this year I saw a pile of great bucks on their feet, made a note of it and plan to hunt there before too long.
anyone know what county? I used to hunt Huntington where that other MONSTER got shot a few years back.
easily biggest bodied deer on average I have ever seen were in Indiana. I am sure Canada and such they get bigger, but there are beasts in the Hoosier state. My old man killed a doe back in.....maybe 90 or 91 that went close to 200 on the hoof. She was enormous. After we gutted her out and got her home, dad took the bathroom scale into the garage and fireman carry style put the doe over his shoulders and stepped onto it- bottomed out the scale at over 350. Pegged it. He was probably about 225 at the time. So that put her at 130+ probably closer to 150 dressed.
you're right about that- was smiling as I typed it out. Hadn't thought of that in years. I also remember how much of a BITC4 she was to drag up the ravine river bank, across the cut corn field (across the grain) and then up into the truck. Good god.
Non-resident tags are going way up in price next year here. But IMO the non-resident tags are not really the thing that keeps us from being a big destination for hunters. Rather, it is our gun season. It falls squarely in the peak of the rut and lasts a solid 15 days. Then following that, you get another 15 days of muzzleloader season. It's simply too much. You look at a place like Wisconsin, that has 3X the number of deer we have here, and their firearm season is only 10 days and does not take place in the middle of the rut. The DNR tried to change it a few years back to just one week at thanksgiving and everyone lost their minds and the DNR backed off. The main firearm season in Ohio is the last Monday in November to the following Sunday and doesn't coincide with the rut and there are some absolute monsters coming out of there. Illinois is another example of this model. I think our gun seasons are the only factor keeping us from being just as good as the other states mentioned. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
...and in Iowa and Kansas there is no firearm deer season until December. Michigan has an "early" firearm season in my opinion. Our first firearm season is Nov 15-30. Too many bucks getting shot in the rut. This is one major reason why so few bucks make it to even their 3rd year. Also, some of the highest hunter numbers in the country.
I dont have much good or bad to say about Illinois conservation on deer except i do like the shotgun seasons. Short and split up. KY attributes its rise in big buck potential to going to One Buck. Not sure if thats needed in Illinois to head back in the right direction or not. We are still considered a big buck state but falling in rank fast. Also lack of public land compared to other states hurts us pretty bad. Illinois is mostly privately owned.
Indiana has been a one buck state for many years and I don't think it's made any difference, mainly due the reasons I stated in my first post. This year the kill numbers are down 10,000 from last year. I don't know if that's because of fewer hunters or fewer deer. I do know that I run cameras 365 and I don't have near the activity that I got prior to 2012. I use 2012 as the example because we had the worst drought I've ever seen and the deer numbers just haven't recovered. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
Haven’t posted in a while. I’m strapped to a tree at my camp this morning in a creek bottom. I saw the buck I am hunting about a week ago in this bottom. We are just now at the end of our rut with very few mature bucks encounters. Hopefully I will catch him going back to bed. Our season ends February 10 so I will probably transition back to hunting food in the next couple of days.
I wish Pennsylvania would inherit Ohios gun regulations. I’ll be out this evening either going to a urban spot or back out to my prop.
I don't disagree with you on most of that, except I think the thing that keeps IN from being a destination state is lack of public land. Don't forget, most people gun hunt and if you're a gun hunter with a chance to hunt with a gun during the rut in a state with low NR tags??? Lots of people would jump on that. IIRC, smallest percentage of public land to total square miles in the nation.
I'm up for the evening. Looking for a doe. Went in further then I ever hunted on this property just to find deer. Bumped a couple off a thick point. I pushed in another 50 yards and climbed a tree. Hoping they return before dark to see what bumped them. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
