On_Point

Went out to meet Jim today & have a look around his place. I checked his land last night using google earth so I had an idea, but it didn't prepare me for how awesome this place is. His whole parcel is about 1 mile from east to west & about 300 yards south to north from the river to the flood levee & is then surrounded on 3 sides by miles of bean & cut corn fields. There's a decent tree line of river birch, oaks & other hardwoods running along the Levee & another good tree line of birch & scrub brush running along the river. Between the two treelines runs roughly 90 acres of Illinois CRP & at each end is a willow grove. Jim put in a couple miles of road through the property years ago but it's all but heavy deer trail now through 10' high crp. Still, he did his best to drive these old roads & show me his old sets, though I wasn't impressed. After about an hour of cruising around & seeing the sights, I shook loose of Jim & took a walk on my own back down to the river to where he'd shown me a big bedding area. Just east of the bedding up near where the groves connect the 2 tree lines I walked upon a slough that runs from the river back up into the timber towards Jims crop fields & I'm pretty sure I found this properties honey hole. The game trails running through this slough look like they were made by buffalo. While I was walking the trail on the river I found tracks from a monster & saw them again in the slough accompanied by his old scrape line. Actually I found so many of his signs & tracks in the slough that I believe I found his primary stomping grounds.

After I thoroughly searched this slough I found myself an oak to put my Summit in, I took out my folding saw & trimmed myself a set. I'm so excited to hunt this place that I'm canceling my opening day plans so I can hunt this site instead.

20 days & counting!

dmax4me

Hi Guys,
Here's a pic of the one I got last year. Just over 147". I'm hoping I can top it but it will be tough.

Mottz

Nice buck dmax! I also hope you can top that one this year! Question for everyone. I'm catching alot of bachelor group pics on my cam, so do you think it would be wise to try and lure in the group with a decoy?

sdhunter11

I think it would be ok as long as you can keep the does away, many a doe have ruined good decoy setups.

sdhunter11

good to hear on your new ground jason, are there any out of state mason county tags left lol?

I just got back from glassing the far east end of the property i hunt and it looked very good. Sitting on top of my favorite hill i seen a bachelor group come over a hill about 5/8 of a mile away and the buck in the back was huge, even from that far away i could tell he was a bruit. I think the draw he just came out of before i seen him was their bedding area so maybe i can make a run at him.

On_Point

I'm sure the non-resident tags are plentiful.

Glad yer seeing shooters there. We'll be expecting a picture of em dead. 8)

Bowman4440

Well went to the pro shop got some new arrows and slung some sticks with a buddy, we both were shooting so good we had to aim away from each other because we each robin hooded each others arrow. It was a good time except now im really anxious for the season to start up. This weekend will consist of hanging a couple seats and checking the cams.

Outdoorcountry

Wow! I have a lot of reading to catch up on! There are a lot of nice pics you guys posted. I want to shoot that "Halo" buck!

I don't have any cameras out but here are some map captures of my hunting grounds.

Bowman4440

Looks like some good land, i see a couple places id like to hang one of my sets

sdhunter11

id kill just to be able to hunt flat ground again lol