Uncle Matt, quick question for you. Im not sure the answer to this put have heard peoples views. If you are shotgun hunting for deer aren't you allowed to carry a sidearm that is legally large enough for deer? I can see not being able to carry a .22 or .38 but If Im carrying a .45 which is legal to shoot deer in Illinois, isn't that legal? Again, Ive never carried a handgun hunting in Illinois but Im pretty sure that in Michigan, Wyoming and Kansas if it is a legal caliber to shoot a deer you are legal to carry in during the Firearm season. Bow season I completely understand not being legal to carry one but Firearm it should be OK. Not that I would ever carry one but just thought Id ask.

Also, I think Matt hunts around where I have hunted in Southern Illinois and the property owner of a piece of land that I have hunted has said in the last 10 years there have been a couple instances where he has seen a BIG black cat, larger than a house cat on a track of his land. He said that he doesn't tell anybody because he isn't there to brag about it but he has lived there his whole life and this is far different from a house cat.

When I was in school at U. of Kansas there was documented evidence of a large black cat in Douglas county. There were about a dozen good pictures of it over a couple years and it was some sort of large panther/cougar type cat. The crazy thing about it was that one spring it was spotted with 3 kittens. Now the large cat was declawed from the tracks they had found in the previous couple of years, but the kittens all had there claws. It had to have meant there was another large cat roaming the hills that no one ever saw.