The whole by county thing is for deer management or trying to manage the deer herd in Illinois. So many permits issued for certain couties, some more, some less. Same way when the had the first handgun season. First year that was 10 counties and then it's progressed up a lot more. I'd also like to see them sold over the counter. I have a friend that hunts in Missouri and they can buy them that way but I guess they have a database so they control how many permits per county...don't quote me on that though. I do know that he has a assigned hunter number for the state of Missouri even though he is a non resident. I think Missouri has a good system.