This is 3 years old, but shows the mentality of NE politicians Firearm deer hunting in Will County? :: Prairie State Outdoors ::
I love this part of the article * Hunters must be 18, meet state requirements for firearm owners and hunters, submit to background check, obtain a hunting zone permit from the forest preserve district and attend a hunter orientation course created by the district for the program. LOL, meeting state requirements for firearm owners and hunters = FOID card but still want separate background check. Chicago loves background checks
CLS basically said what I was meaning, and probably put it better. Like I said in a earlier post the DNR has its hands tied pretty much because you can't bite the hand that feeds you. Budget cuts are always being made to the DNR and most of the money pulled in is not goin back into the department. In the last five years there's been a lot of state run land around here that's all but shut down. Its kind of a joke and a shame to see it being wasted but there's no money to do anything.
Friends of DNR This is a article from last year and doesn't say much about hunting but I'm guessing the people responsible for these cuts over the last ten years are probably the ones deciding on many other issues.
My dad was a DNR employee for 40 or so years, with the better part spent running one of the largest sites in the state. To say DNR has had it's hands tied with funding and hiring new employees is spot on. Unfortunantly despite my dad being an avid hunter inside the park, deer hunting was not a pressing issue of discussion for his bosses up north. I don't get as much info since he's retired, but from what I hear and what little I've seen it's just gotten worse in the last 4+ years. Others have described much better and in deeper detail what I meant earlier.
This weekend is looking to be the coldest of the season, add in the wintry mess across the state and numbers should drop even further. I'm going to go out Friday, need to take my cams down. Don't know if I'll shoot anything or not, but hoping to have some snow on the ground either way. Will likely be my last hunt of the year.
IMO JZ is right. I'd bet things will get worse. If IL DNR's anything like Wi, good luck your going to need it. Hunters need to take more accountability when it comes to managing the deer herd, I know that's not always possible. Its a better option then waiting for the DNR to make changes.
Anyone have any luck or hearing any reports? I went out Friday and didn't see anything, heard one shot on the neighbors land and 2 other distant shots(one was multiple shot) and that's about it. The county I hunt is closed for late antlerless, so a round of muzzleloader and they're pretty much finished. Haven't heard much of anything else, so not expecting earth shattering numbers to come out of it. Only possible way I go back out is if we get a good snow in he forecast that falls on a day off. And I migh hit some public land in a different county for that one, but after firearm season it gets pretty tough with pressured deer.
I didn't go out . However, while out driving down the road yesterday and today I didn't see any trucks parked in the places you normally see them. I don't think very many people around here was hunting. Ill bet numbers are way down after this weekend.
We hunted 4 days and never fired a shot. I was the only one to see deer out of the 8 hunters who we had out here (no one hunted all 4 days). I passed a small 8 yesterday afternoon, and then with the fresh snow I still hunted for about 3 hours today. Saw a few deer, including a very nice buck I couldn't get a shot on. We only killed 4 deer on our farm and my uncles this year ( roughly about 550 acres). All gun kills. No one bowhunting ever unleashed an arrow. That is the lowest total I can ever remember going back to the mid 90's.
Didn't even go out, too dang cold. Didn't hear any shots really all weekend and didn't really see that many people out.
Hearing reports from you guys sure makes things seem really bad . Makes you wonder how bad next year will be.
I shot a doe last evening. Saw a fair amount of deer. Didn't hear that many shots. Didn't get many success texts. I think overall it seemed like less were shot in my neck of the woods.
Never heard a shot anywhere around our property. I don't think most of the guys that hunt the adjoining property were even out, as they are getting up there in years, and it was pretty cold and nasty most of the past 4 days. I'm off from December 18th until after the first of the year, and I am really looking forward to getting back to bowhunting. I have been getting good movement on the trail cams, so we'll see what the late season brings. I have the cold weather gear ready to go!
No doubt deer numbers are down but, the weather during both gun seasons was horrible. The hotel we stay at for the first gun season is usually packed, 20-30 vehicles. This year, there were like 7-8 cars. Many hunters just stayed home, and I'm sure the second season was worse as far as participation. Hell, even bow season had a lot of very windy days during the rut, keeping the action to a minimum. I'm staying optimistic for the next couple of seasons, as I have a lot of fawn pics this year and a good crop of young bucks.
I think the weather was a blessing more than a hinderance. It saved a lot of deer, but numbers were still low prior to it. Hopefully Mother Nature is nice to us this coming spring and summer. I think we'll be ok next year if we have normal precipitation. There's a lot of factors in the numbers being down, one of them was the near record and record flooding across the north half of the state. A lot of crops didn't get planted at all and that caused the deer to disperse due to lack of food sources. But that still doesn't explain why numbers in neighboring areas didn't increase as you'd think they would.
