Anti hunters hit Giant City State park in Illinois during shotgun season.
 

I was talking to one of my Deputy roadies downstate last night and he told me that his dad had ran into a group of Anti-hunters in Giant City state park this past first season of our firearm season. He said that he was a really good distance, how far, who knows, from the parking lot andbegan to hear footsteps approaching. He gets his weapon ready to only see a set of dogs with blazeorange vests on!!!! Then come a few more after that. Only to be followed in a few minutes by a group of people wearin blaze orange, talking very loudly and spraying perfume and things as they walked!!!!!! They saw him in the stand, waved at him, told him they hope he falls out of the tree and then sprayed perfume all around and left!!!!! He leaves, goes back to his truck. Calls the DNR. They send out somebody. He tells them what happened. Individual states that being its a public park, wearing the required blaze orange, there is nthing he can do about it!!! I told my buddy that there is a law in Illinois that does not allow hunter harassment and it sounds more like he just didn't want to do anything about it. He called the CPO's and they said they had complaints, just no names or vehicle discrpt's yet to work with. They were more than likely dropped off and then picked back up to prevent this.

What a shame! Giant City State Park is a very nice place. I have not hunted there but have seen some nice Deer there when camping there once.

CVG Ohio

It's a public park says it all. Terrible shame to have his hunt molested in such a manner BUT if he was 5 or 10 miles deep I believe the results and out comes would be different! To boldly go where no man will follow THATS where the deer are anyhow! :)
I had to add anti hunters are probably anti hikers TOO !! Hahaha

Too bad he didn't video them. I would have got out the phone and got pictures and video.

I know that he hunts WAY OFF the beaten path. So I was almost as surprised to hear this as he was to see it. I never gave it a thought of the camera/video thing.And I always advocate carrying a disposable camera in the truck for emergencies and such. I will pass it along.

Illinois does have a hunter harassment law, 720 ILCS 125/0.01-4
Text here: http://statutes.laws.com/illinois/chapter720/1881

The camera is a great idea. Not sure why he DNR employee didn't follow up, but it would be worthwhile to file a report with either a CPO or the sheriff's department. Never know when they might get caught, and if law enforcement has you on record, it might result in another charge being added.

I've hunted a state park in VA but when they have the hunting going on they close the park to everyone else. They close the gates and have a designated time they are open and a guy is there checking permits. No permit, no entry. To me that is the best system for things like this.

Gotta wonder how many deer these people chase from the safety of cover straight to their death.

I was wondering the same thing..

That sucks to hear, I always said that if I gun hunted public land again I would want to hunt there. I hunted it a lot during college and its a great area. I know that these tree huggers tried to buy up all the permits for Crab Orchard a few years back. While they probably ruin a few hunters day, with them walking around they probably kill more deer by pushing them to other hunters than they save.

If they did something like that to me I'd probably follow them back to there car and get a description of the vehicle.