drstalker

Muley I live in Geneva right now but spent many years in Elgin,Dundee,Carpentersville,and s Elgin.I have live here most of my life with and some years down state where I was born.It 's about 35 miles west of Chicago,and it used to be the cut off line from suburbia&ruraul.This month I'll be moving just west of here and it will be the furthest I have been from the Fox river in almost 40 years.At least where I'm moving there is still some farm land left and posible hunting spotsWe used to have pheasant around and they where almost as common as whitetail deer.Not anymore

IL Rancher

Ahhh, the Fox Valley.. Grew up there and still visit my folks. More deer around my house now than there were 20 years ago and a lot less places for them to hide unfortunatley...

Most farms around here have no irrigation. They are dry, the people who have taken ear samples on their corn are getting between 20-50 KERNALS an ear and that is it. Ground that produced 200 bushels last year is being described as a catastophic loss here, pastures don't grow more than 1/2 inch in a month and are now dormant. My 60 acre alfalfa field that gave 276 tons last year on the first two cuttings (Which is a HUGE yield, don't get me wrong) gave me 130 tons this year while the Barley hay fields went from 4 large bales an acre to 1.5 bales an acre... Bad. Bad. Bad.

Deer are much more active around here this year than last as they are scampering for water sources and food sources. I have had hay bales being hit hard that are stacked for winter feeding. Locals are now saying this year looks like it is going to worse than 1988 and so far we are the 3rd driest year in the past 100 years so that should come as no surprise. Oh well, these things happen.

The only good wildifle thing I have seen this year, and I have no explanation for this, is that small game numbers seem to be up again this year around here. Rabbits, Quail and even pheasants (Though, they are the scarest of the 3 of late, but they tend to hide better on my farm until fall roles around).

IL-Cornfed

It is as dry as a bone in my area as well. In fact the corn and beans have not been this short since the droughts from nearly 15 years ago! We had corn that was honestly TWICE the heigth by the 4th of July! This will be a bad production year with the acreage yield being drastically down from any seasons past in many years. Many foodplots in the arae are yellow, wilted and dead and many alfalfa and clover fields have been cut for many, many weeks because of their lack of growth. Two of the creeks in my hunt area have dried up to small standing puddles in areas. It's not looking good but the deer seem to be weathering it very well and do not appear overly stressed..... yet! It could be a tough winter for them though with the redused harvest yields that are being predicted.

Dairy King

Now it's not just the rain we gotta worry about around here, its the damn spider aphids or something. We used to farm a place, and a guy rented it out from underneath us. He lost 140 acres of beans in just one field to just these things. Where we got 210 bushels/acre last year, I doubt we will get much over 100 bushels/acre of corn. It's gettin bad. Im worried for alot of the farmers around here.

justhuntitall

I live south of the Quadcitties 30 miles and live on a farm this is as dry as I have ever seen it if you dig 3' in the ground its like powder . Sounds like we are going to get some rain Monday cross your fingers. I dont think it will afect the deer season there is plenty of deer.


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