Well I'm back. And I have a little bit of a story to tell I guess.
Halloween was a real treat for me because I got a bonus hunt in. I hadn't really planned on it, but my wife took the day off and even SUGGESTED that I should go hunt. Better get her something nice for Christmas...
Anyway, I have been meaning to hunt at Shabbona Lake State Park her in Illinois for a few years. I have been there for other reasons and it is a nice place. And it is only an hour's drive from home. But I have been distracted by other opportunities and I just hadn't made it a priority. I was a little daunted to get out there because I hadn't done any scouting and I really didn't want to bungle someone else's hunt or waste my time by being in the wrong place. But since the opportunity presented itself I took it.
Let me just start off by saying the State of Illinois Web presence for it's public hunting areas is TERRIBLE. The information available is of low quality most times and It is not cross referenced well at all. It might all be out there, but good luck finding it all.
I should say that the people who work for the DNR are great though. Every one of them that I have talked with has been informative and supportive. So I did feel good about getting this hunt in, although I was leery of showing up in the dark and being able to find a good spot to be in.
And that is where trailhead hunting buddies come in to play. I pulled up to the check in station and I'm the only one there. But before I can even get out of the car a truck pulls in and a guy who looked like he'd been there before hopped out. I introduced myself and asked him a couple questions and he had some good suggestions. We exchanged phone numbers in case either of us needed help dragging a deer out. He said he had been hunting there for 4 years and had good success. Which is nice to know because if you Google hunting at that park, you find very few posts on hunting forums and most of the posts are vague or downright negative. Which might be the old hunter's trick of not giving away your secrets. But that is neither here nor there. This guy helped me out a lot and I really appreciate it.
I didn't bring a tree stand since I had no idea where a stand would go well. I just had a stool so that I could ground hunt and be mobile if necessary. Trailhead Buddy informed me that the ag field in the park had been picked so I decided to tuck in along the edge of the picked corn. Here is my morning view.
It was a really nice place to sit, the view was limited, but I felt I had a good shooting window and I was well screened on my left and right. Legal shooting light was 6:55 a.m and about 6:05 a.m. a very inconsiderate deer came tromping along about 15 yards out from right to left. It was too dark to see detail so I am not sure if it was a buck or a doe, but it seemed very solid in the shoulders and chest and it was walking very deliberately that just seemed buck-like to me.
Like I mentioned, it was too dark to shoot so I just had to watch the deer travel on it's way. It was a bit of a victory for me in that it is the first real live deer I've seen (not including roadside daredevils) since January on the last day of the last season. Also, the wind was nominally blowing from me to the deer, but in actuality the cover I was in kinda had the wind blowing from right to left. It was nice to know that I could get into a spot that I could see deer. Now I just need to work on timing.
At about 11 I decided to get up and walk around a little, to see what other places I might be able to set up. I found a nice group of sycamore trees overlooking the ag field on the West side.
That could be a good tree to hang a stand in. Got that filed away for another day.
A little further down there was a nice area under the canopy of oaks and maples.
I sat there for about an hour and a half, just watching the leaves fall and checking out all of the squirrels as they went about their squirrel business. And I found a nice tree to hang a stand in. So all in all it was a great day. I feel like I have this in my back pocket in case the guy who invited me to use one of his stands on Saturday flakes out on me. I'll be calling him to firm up plans tomorrow. And I can go out there for bow hunting from now until January. They don't allow firearm hunting on the property so I won't necessarily have to sit out those two weekends.
OK guys, take it easy. I'll be back with more as it happens.
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