whitetailcrazy

If you have hunted in Illinois longer than 10 years, you will most definitely understand!

http://www.heartlandoutdoors.com/gue...etail_disaster

Zim

No doubt. Our only saving grace is the short firearm seasons...........all outside of the peak rut. That will always prevent us from falling to the wastelands that are Tennessee, Michigan, Louisiana, Mississippi, etc. But I don't see anyplace replacing my #1 destination Iowa any time soon. It is a shame Illinois has dropped in quality over the last 10 years. Outfitter & landowner lobbyists tapping into our corrupt politicians were the #1 culprits. Game managers have been neutered.

lifesadrag

Politicians in this state/country have and are in the process of destroying more than just deer hunting. One can only hope it's not too late for people to wise up and do something about it before it gets past the point of no return!! When enough people decide to spend they're money elsewhere like Zim they might get the message. Hopefully it wont be too late!

lifesadrag

http://www.wsiltv.com/news/local/Dee...238304241.html

Oh....and then there's this!!!

MZS

Interesting article! So shooting more antlerless deer to balance buck to doe ratios actually helped the IL deer population years back? I can see how this can be important up by us, where a harsh winter can wipe out an overpopulated herd, but in IL, winters are not so harsh. Can someone explain why this works. (I am not questioning the validity, I just would like to know why this works).

arrowman2317

Very well put, huge decline here in Iowa too, Govenor wants to keep the pockets lined from the Farm Bureau and the Insurance Industry. He tells the Iowa DNR biologist's that is not of thier concern and keep almost all of the extra doe tags open for all to pillage. I would bet the deer herd is down here by at least 60%. We will all have to act like sportsman when we visit the VOTING BOOTH !!

grinder67

The same things are happening to the herd in Indiana. More and more doe tags per hunter and longer and longer gun seasons. Couple that with houses being built in every patch of woods there is, equals way less deer and fewer places for those deer to live.

Zim

Ya when I moved here from Indiana in 2006 I got my lifetime license and thought it was gold. I did shoot nice bucks off public in 06 & 07, but the decline since then has been significant. 2008-2011 totally sucked. Only by 2012 did I decide I needed to tap into my stockpiled 4 Iowa points. Had a great hunt just like the good old days in Illinois. So bought another point in 2013. Will try to make due on special IL draw hunts until I can draw Iowa again maybe 2015. But I sure as hell won't be accumulating them and stockpiling them like last time. They will promptly get burnt the first year I can draw! Hope they never stop limiting NR's.

Topgun 3006

*** That is real BS when the article says that late January season is only going to target does. How about all the bucks that have shed by then? I guess the hunter will have to grab one before he shoots and spread it's legs to see if it has nuts or not, LOL!!!

The one thing that people are missing here on this thread is that nobody is forcing people to buy and use those tags, so it's the hunters that are killing too many that are just as much to blame IMHO!

rockport

First my opinions here are based on Pike,Scott, and Adams county because frankly I don't have enough experience with the rest.

Although most of the healthy bucks don't shed until February Ive always hated the late season. Just to close IMO.

I think its awful hard to point fingers at herd management after 2 straight years of major EHD......of course numbers are down. About every farmer/outfitter I talk to has found 10-60 deer dead from EHD. I don't remember the year but its been probably 7ish years ago we had blue tongue where I hunt and it was way worse than this.

I figure with the massive EHD kill the hunting numbers only dropping 25%......thats actually pretty good...Maybe there were to many deer?

Having said all that I'm a hunter like you guys and I want as many deer as possible BUT a place like Pike Co exist because of farming. Farming carries the whole county. While that massive deer herd is great for us hunting its not so great for the farmers.

Even now crops are just flat out destroyed. I know for the guy I hunt on having a huge deer population on his farm is about as desirable as me having a huge mouse population in my house.

The herd management is not all about us.

Back to the EHD. The 3 farms I can hunt are in the 3 different counties but all within 30 miles of each other. All 3 still have strong deer population although not like it was at one time except for the Scott county property......Its crawling with deer and heavily hunted by some relatives. I rarely hunt there for that reason but they have about 5 guys hunting 50 acres and its still loaded with deer which leads me to believe the difference is EHD hasn't hit them as hard....there is a big natural spring on the property and I suspect that is why.

I don't know enough about the rest of the state to know one way or another but we do have to remember managing this deer herd is not all based on our recreational needs/wants. Without the guy that works his but off all year farming I wouldn't have what I do. I'd say its safe to assume none of us would. We have to consider their needs more than our own wants IMO.