I feel your pain, 442. Same can be said for duck and goose hunting. Just found out this week that I lostmy spoton the Mississippi that was in my wife's family for years. All the hunt clubs are buying up everything they can get their hands on, forcing all the regular Joe's to hunt public land. It's become a big business in an area where the economy is terrible.

I am also from Southern IL and there are many out of staters that come here to hunt. And like 442 said they are taking over land that people have hunted for years but now cant because they arent paying for it. I have mixed emotions about outfitters. I would one day like to go out west and hunt elk with and outfitter or someone from here possibly. But when an outfitter is raising deer to mass levels and taking those deer from the farm to the woods so someone from North can come and pay $12000 for a 170+ class deer is outragious. They are fenced in and not even scorable. All i can say in the years i have been deer hunting it has become a more costly game than once was.

Mark