Great day in Illinois
 

Today was Illinois shotgun opener and the bucks were on the move. The morning was kind of slow as I only saw 4 does and a small 110 inch 8 point. I shot one of the does and let the rest walk.

This afternoon my luck changed (sort of). I was hunting a stand that is in a staging area and surrounded by bedding areas. The neighbors started shooting at some deer about 2:45 and from 3:00-5:00 I saw over 20 deer come running across their fence to me.Unfortunantly they all ran about 100-120 yards off onto another ridge.

Out of these deer there were 4 bucks.A small 6 point came through early and shortly followed by a real nice 130 class 8 pointer.A few minutes later I saw nothing but horns coming across the cut corn field as a real wide 10 pointer was chasing a doe, and behind him was a small 8 pointer. The big buck disappeared into the brush and reappeared on the same ridge 30 mintues later with 3 more does. He once again ran off, and about 5:00 I saw some does filtering out into the field. I climbed down and began to stalk to the edge.

When I got thereabout 10does had spooked and ran off but the big 10 pointer was straggling behind them. He took one long last look at me at about 50 yards. I pulled up on him, but the problem was my cousin was supposed to be hunting a stand over the other side of the field. I couldn't take the shot I was presented with so I had to watch helplessly as a buck of a lifetime walked off.

I was sick to my stomach when I came back to the shed and my cousin said he had killed out early in the afternoon and was no longer on the ridge. I am going to have a long night trying to shake this big boy out of my head.

I looked at some pictures of some deer and I would compare him to be anywhere from 24-26 inches wide and his G2's and G3's were both right around 10 inches and his main beams sweeped around, he lacked some mass, and I'm not to sure how to guess a score on him as I have nothing to compare him too.

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

We had a great opener too. Hunt in Christian County. I shot a big doe @ 7 . It was funny I wasn't going to shoot her so I passed a 15 yd broadside. She milled around for about 20 minutes, too long. I started to feel guilty about not shooting, fearing I might not see another doe as nice as her so I reached out and nabbed her 50yds. Perfect heart shot. Best thing was she bolted up the hill and expired on a logging trail.:):):) THen I heard the father in law shoot around 830. He was set up in a funnel about 200 yds away. He nailed a solid 7 pt. So I shimmied down my tree in my climber and headed his way. as i was walking down the ridge I remembered that my gun was not loaded, so i put one shell in...as soon as i looked up i saw a head...there was a even bigger doe bedded down 60 yds down hill. she stood up and stared to me. I couldn't help it I put a bead on her and dropped her.

in all, the 3 of us set up in our triangle took 2 bucks and four does and we be sleeping in tommorow.:(:(:(

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

Thats some good work, even tho its common sense and we would like to think that all hunters have brains, some don't. Congrats for realizing that zero is the only amount af acceptable risk when it comes to knowing your shot and whats beyond, even if it was a world record.

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

We use those hand radios. they have a range of a couple miles. Just put on vibrate. We even have a vibrate code. vibrate once if we see a deer, twice if its heading the other guys way, three times if weregetting down. You can make up your own codes. I really didn't like wearing those earpeices. We only bow hunt though, but just a thought. Same with cell phones, vibrate leave message and then we listen to message. No noise at all. Vibrate then text.Just using what we already have.

Good luck!

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

Just a question I also hunt in Illinois both bow and gun, I am100% sure it says that hunting hours end at sunset for gun, and on Saturday that meant sunset here in Northern Illinois was at 4:33PM. Where abouts in illinois were you gun hunting that you can shoot at 5:00 PM

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

You're 100% sure?

Check the DNR web page. It says legal hunting hours are from 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1/2 hour after sunset. Also, sunrise and sunset vary by a few minutes from one side of the state to the other. If you're in North Eastern Illinois, sunrise/sunset will occur a few minutes before sunrise/sunset in North Western Illinois. Also, days are longer as you travel further south. Example, today in Chicago, sunrise/sunset is 6:46 a.m/4:26 p.m. In St. Louis, it's 6:49 a.m./4:44 p.m.

I live/hunt in Texas, and there's a 12 minute difference in sunrise/sunset between where I live (Houston) and where I hunt (N. of San Antonio)

Today in Houston, it's 6:50 a.m./5:25 p.m. In San Antonio, it's 7:02 a.m./5:37 p.m.

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

Well this is illinois and not Texas.
Archery Season is half hour before sunrise to half hour after sunset sunset.
Gun season is half before surise to sunset.
Here is the link to the web site if you are still doubting me.

http://dnr.state.il.us/admin/systems/Digest/season_dates.pdf

RE: Great day in Illinois
 

Sorry, I didn't look at that page closely enough when I replied. I saw the archery stuff saying 1/2 hour after sunrise, and jumped to the conclusion that that's what it was for everthing. Sorry, I was wrong.