I am done with hunting in Illinois!
After living in Illinois for over 8 years and hunting all 8 of them, I am no longer giving directly giving my money to the IDNR or the state by buying a tag, license, gear etc in this state.
This all came about after moving to Mchenry last month, thinking I would have plenty of places to hunt. I used to hunt Midewin, Marseilles, Des Plaines and some private ground out by Joliet.
I recently got an education on Mchenry Conservation District. They have acquired over 24k acres of land using public tax money and muni bonds.
They only allow approx 100-150 hunters access to hunt, that is a whopping 160 acres per hunters.
Not to mention the rather short dove season at Chain O'Lakes SP (5 days) and very unlikely chance to hunt Moraine Hills (5 min from house)
For the foreseeable future, I will take my money and time to Wisconsin.
But there may be a light at the end of the tunnel, if you have read this far, then maybe you will join me.
Any hunter in Mchenry or Lake County that feels like me need to get together and fight for our rights to hunt the same public land that we pay for, period!
If you have any ideas, please PM me. I will be talking with other hunters that I meet in the area to put a stop to this.