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Ben's 2019 Semi-live hunt log

TheBenHoyle

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
825
Location
Illinois
Well, it's probably a month before I get to do any hunting, but I bought my Illinois archery deer and turkey tags so it feels like the season starts now.

Here's a little run down of my plans:
I have a lead on a new place to possibly do some September Canada goose hunting, which would be a treat. I've been trying to get a buddy into goose hunting and he's finally come around to the idea, which is good since it is hid brother who has the pond I'm hoping to hunt. We'll see if that works out.

I'm going to try to get out in early October to a new public hunting area in hopes of getting to know the turkey population and patterns. I don't have high hopes for putting an arrow in a turkey, but there is a shotgun season in late October that I should be able to hunt that same piece of public.

In late October and early November I hope to get back to that same piece of property I took my buck on last year. My relationship with the guy who has the permission is a little tenuous, he'll probably let me go out, but I am sure he won't confirm that until the week of. Which is part of the reason I am spending time in the early season at that public piece. If I get to know that well enough I might just spend the rest of my season out there. It's a little further drive, but I think it should be good in terms of turkey numbers and deer habitat.

Hopefully in December I will get a chance to do some duck and geese hunting in with my buddy Chris.

This year there is a twist, I will be going to Hawaii for the week of Christmas. I usually try to go out with my bow on my birthday Dec. 28th, but I don't think I'll be taking my bow to Hawaii. HOWEVER, I might treat myself to spear fishing.

All in all, I will have some adventures and I will share them here.
 
Sounds like the makings of a fun fall! I've always wanted to get into waterfowl, but never could figure it out and struggle mightily. I'll follow along.
I have had some limited success with waterfowl hunting. My biggest struggle is access to a place I can get on ducks and geese. Keep in mind I have a resident flock of about 100 geese and 75 ducks just down the street from my house, but you can't hunt in the suburbs...
 
So last fall/winter I hunted in a treestand that was about 150 yards south of a creek and about 50 yards north of the creek was a pond in the corner of a 40-ish acre parcel that was just jam-packed with geese. I looed up the property on ONx and I see who owns it, but even though I grew up in the area, I don't know these people. The address listed for the owners is in New Mexico (parcel is in Illinois). I would love to get permission to hunt that pond, since as far as I could see there were no hunters on that property. I think I will write the owners a letter and send it to the address listed. I don't have much hope that they will respond, but I figure it is worth the effort. Sadly, I have talked to some people in the area about who owns what and who can hunt on what and there is an awful lot of hand-wringing and uncertainty.
In two cases, my buddy and I were told something along the lines of "Well I don't know, we told another guy he could hunt there a few years ago, so I would hate to say you could if he still hunts there..." And when we asked for the name of the other hunter, thinking we could talk to that person and arrange to hunt when he was not on the property, the property owners didn't even have the name or a contact #. In one case it might have been that they just didn't want hunters, but on the other it was my buddy's uncles telling us this. They would have been happy to let us hunt but they had been approached by this other guy and didn't pay any attention to who he was.
Anyway, that's the end of my mini-rant. I'll try to get in contact with these people but I'm sure it is a longshot. So many geese though...
 
I'm surrounded by un-huntable geese, as well! Thousands of them!

Good luck on securing access as well as your tags! Its easy to take access for granted, reading stories like yours.
 
This is kind of a boring update, but I went fishing last night. My daughter's soccer practice was in a park that had a pond and I was smart enough to bring a rod along. I didn't catch anything, but I had a few nibbles and saw fish flopping out further than I could cast. On the plus side, I was in the shade of a big willow which was nice because the sun was pretty brutal. Also I found out that she will be having practice at that park twice a week through November, so I might get some real opportunities to fish that pond. I'll post a picture if I actually catch anything.
 
Fishing in a pond can be nice and relaxing,But watch out for what we call:
The "Vicious Buttfishes".My buddy and myself fished a city pond one evening,
and caught a mess of Catfish.Took them home and started to clean them.
They smelled worse than Dog shite!... Mc Donalds is my kinda' place. :cool:
 
I'm tentatively scheduled for some early Canada goose hunting on Sept. 7th. It might fall through if my hunting buddy can't convince his brother to let us set up on his pond, but I have to act like it will work out. I also have a feeler out to a different property owner. I have very low hopes on that one, but you never know.

Anyway, in hopes of getting the opportunity to shoot at some geese, I went out to shoot sporting clays with my brother in law. I try to do that 2-3 times a year. I'd love to do it more often, but it's about an hour drive to the club and it's hard to find time when we can both get there with sports schedules and such. I'm not a great shot when it comes to clay pigeons, but over the years I have gotten better consistently albeit slowly. Well Sunday was a banner day. I shot my best round ever and was able to enjoy perfect late September weather in August. I think we're going to try to get out again next week and maybe I can continue to improve my shooting consistency.

I also shot my bow when I got home and I think I realized that I'm a little behind on my preparations for archery season. I have some time, but I need to start shooting every day. On Wednesday I'm going to a Bowtech event at my local shop and while I'm there I'm going to have the staff back down the poundage on my bow. It is at 70#s now and I have been having some trouble with my left shoulder, which keeps me from shooting as much. I think 60#s will suffice for white tails and it will make me feel better about shooting the bow more often. As a clarification, my should does not hurt when I shoot. But it can hurt at other times. I did some physical therapy on it and that has helped. Hopefully reducing the poundage will reduce the long term wear a tear on my joints.
 
On the upside I went to a Bowtech event at my local archery shop last night. It was fun and I got to shoot the Realm SS and Realm SR as well as the Convergence. All great bows. Although I have a 1-year-old RealmX that I love but I am thinking about getting my wife a bow. So one of those might be the right choice.

On the downside I received a response to the letter I sent out. Turns out the property has a long-term hunting lease on it. It is nice that I received a response but I never would have thought it was worth leasing. Oh well, it was worth the effort to inquire.

Now I need to find the time in the next 4 weeks to get out to a spot I want to scout before the archery season starts Oct. 1st.
 
I got a couple bits of good news yesterday. I found out I was issued a fall shotgun turkey permit. I was pretty sure I would be, but it is nice to know for sure. It helps for my hunt planning in October.

I also found out that I was issued a limited access permit for archery deer hunting in a forest preserve about 20 minutes from my house. It is for the first 2 weeks of the season, so deer might be more nocturnal than not, but it is so close to the house I should be able to put in a lot of hunt time and not have to miss any soccer games for my daughter. I'm going to try to get out there this weekend to do a little hiking/scouting.
 
Some quick updates from over the weekend.
Friday I managed to get out to the little pond by the soccer field my daughter practices on. Caught two of these little crappies (I think?) Not much bigger than the lure I was using...
Fishy Friday.jpg

On Sunday I went out to the area that I have access to archery hunt for deer in early October. It is a semi-reclaimed strip mine area, it is a series of long-narrow ponds with long thin strips of higher ground between them.
Ponds JPPSP.jpg
There is a lot of water and my only path into the hunt area is in the same tight area between the water that the deer will be traveling through. But that does create some pinch points. I found a spot with a lot of tracks from deer traveling trough.
Tracks JPPSP.jpg
There might be more spots like this, but I didn't have time to look over every part of my unit. I thik I will try to set up over this spot the first morning and then see if I can do some mid-day scouting during the season. I have a good feeling about my chance for success in this unit. I may not be able to pull a gigantic buck out of it, but I don't have that as my highest priority.

As a side note, I found this old jalopy back in these woods.
Car JPPSP.jpg

Later on Sunday I took my wife and my girls to the archery range. I'm trying to get them into archery and that definitely got it started. We left the range with everyone saying that we should do that more often. Now I need to figure how to fit that into my hunting plans this fall. I definitely want to keep this momentum going.

Sadly, I found out today that my hoped for early season goose hunt will not materialize. My buddy is coaching his son's football team and they have a game on the only morning that I could go out. Hopefully we can find time in November to go out for geese.
 
Good write ups. I don’t think that’s a crappie. That’s one of the species of sunfish that are generally called bream. Not sure exactly which species, but they all taste good and down here there is a limit of around 50 a day.
 
What you caught is a Bluegill.(Notice the blue spot)A sub-species of Sunfish.
Great eating fish,Compares to Crappie.
Looks like you found a good hunting area,Good Luck. :cool:
 
Little update, in lieu of my scrapped goose hunt on Saturday I am going out to a public area to squirrel hunt/scout the area for archery deer and turkey. I bought a half a hog and it needs to be picked up at the meat locker on Saturday which is just up the road from this piece of public ground. It's kind of a two birds one stone deal, although they won't be birds they'll be squirrels. Also, as this is my first attempt at squirrel hunting I will most likely only be bringing pork home with me. I'll try to have some pics and a write up after the weekend.
 
Squirrels are fun.Once saw my buddy shoot a squirrel and when it
hit the ground it attacked him!I was laughing so hard I almost wet myself.
This big Ol' fat dude running away from a little Squirrel waving a pistol around
trying to get a shot...It Killed Him...Good Luck Ben! :cool:
 
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