Question on hunting in Illinois
 

I need advice from a non-resident hunter from Illinois,

I have permission to hunt a farm in Illinois. I live in Florida. I searched the web and it appears that non-resident hunters must be pulled from a lottery in order to puchase a license and number2 they must obtain some kind of permit to bring a firearm into the state. Please tell I'm wrong and tell me simply how I can obtain a non-resident license.
Thanks a million,
Chuck

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

WWW.DNR.STATE.IL.US

thats the dnr site and has all the info you need

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

I bowhunt in Illinois every year. For archery you need an out of state hunting license (about 55 bucks) and then a deer tag (About 250 bucks for a buck and a doe). The license can be purchased easily and anytime but the tags are the hanger. For archery they are a lot easier. They can be purchased over the phone but they only issue 15000 and demand is high. They sold out in one day last year. I think they usually go on sale in July.

Illinois also has a short black powder season and a short shotgun slug season. But if you aren't a resident I think you have to sign up and try to get drawn for a black powder or shotgun tag. You can't just buy one. Illinois has no high powered rifle season for deer. I'm not sure if these tags are higher than the archery tags or not.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

You/ve been a big help. I went to their web-site only to find out" come back in May to get imformation about hunting deer." I contacted a game warden and "he's not sure." I live in Florida and made 10 calls I found on the net that sell Illinois licence.
Here were my answers. Walmart sure we sell the entire package non-resident for 20.00. Yeah right
Tax agency Oh calling from Florida lo lo lo we only sell resident license.
Game Warden uuuh I'm not really sure .
Sports Authority I'm not sure how about 180 . 00
Folks if you want imformation about Florida I can give ya a straight answer.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

I heard Illinois is planning on raising the tag price to around $500. and go back to selling over the counter due to problems that occured with there tag sales last year. I think it is still just a proprosal though? Here is a link I saw on another site that suggests/talks about the price increase.
CLICK-HERE

As far as it being illeagle to transport a firearm into Illinois without a permit... You are correct. But I have never attemted to get a permit, I just go hunting. The also have a law about how much cash you can have on you while traveling through Illinois. If over a certain amount ( $1000 I think?) They can confiscate it, without charging you with a crime. But I heard there is a lawyer fighting that law...maybe it got changed? Illinois does have some screwy laws, if you behave though you should not have a problem

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

bukmastr i heard the same thing, also heard the 500 $ deal, but i also heard you will still have to apply for the shotgun/muzzle loader tickets.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

You might be right? That might just be for bow tags.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

One of the Game Wardens of Illinois wrote me an E-mail yesterday. To my understanding he said" non- resident was around 50.00 , a deer stamp is 200.00 and then you must summit applications to draw the deer tags in order to shoot the deer. And the catch..you need to buy the 200 dollar deer license before you can summit the application for the tag.

Conclusion...I need to get good in the state I live at. In N.W Florida near the Alabama line there are alot of nice racks on some decent size deer.
Chuck

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

Thanks for the link. This hunting forum is awesome. It's great to be able to get all this imformation from other hunters.
Chuck

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

Chuck, I'm from Illinois and I can tell you that all of the firearm permits are on a draw basis. I don't know alot about the non-resident requirements but I do know they have put more restrictions on non-residents that in the past. As a resident we have to have a F.O.I.D., Firearm Owners Identification card, to carry any firearm. They are issued by the Illinois state police and cost about $5 and are good for 5 years. If I can help you in any way just let me know. You might post this in the regional forum under midwest. Good luck!

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

that sounds like it gets expensive fast. It might be worth it though

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

Everyone has been very helpful. This site is awesome. I wish I could hunt with some of you guys. I don't plan to hunt Illinois anymore. Illinois is 910 miles from my house anyway and Florida has alot less hassles . However are deer are some what smaller. At this point of my life I'm still at the putting venison on the table stage. I plan to spend 40.00 dollars to hunt the place where one of those trophy bucks were taken that I listed on this site today.
Have a great day.
Chuck

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

illinois has all the stupid laws because they keep voting in the democrats.in a few years they will be lucky to have a gun at all.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

The problem is Chicago and the metropolitan area around it. What Chicago and mayor Daley wants they get!! If you can overcome the cost, the large amounts of private ground, and the hassle, Illinois has some awesome bucks.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

I was also in the same situation this year. I had permission to hunt a 1500 acre farm but was unable to pull a buck tag. When I contacted the NWR it was like this was their first call and knew not much more than I did, which wasn't much. As far as them selling out of archery tags in 1 day last year yes this is true. A friend of mine works for a company that videos and had a planned hunt in Ill. After doing their research they were told that P.I.T.A. had bought every non resident bowhunting tag and burnt them. I have no idea how they pulled this off but it is a true story. It just goes to show you how much this crazy organization has grown. Just hope that something is done to keep this from happening again.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

I WONDER WHAT THE FINE WOULD BE FOR BUYING A RESIDENT LICENSE IF YOU GOT CAUGHT WITH PRICES LIKE THAT OTHER SITE IS TALKING IT MIGHT BE WORTH FINDING OUT.

re:reply to skidmark
 

You are right the PETA orginazation is growing and is getting more radical every year. It is also true that they did buy up some of the non-resident bowhunting permits but not all of them. We finally got through the over the phone tag sales at around 10:00a.m. the first day they went on sale and got 4 for our group. We have obtained tags every year for the last 4 years and hunt on public ground only and love hunting Illinois. Although if their tags go up to $500 screw it they can all fund their own wildlife department because thats ridiculous.

RE: re:reply to skidmark
 

Well I hate PETA as much as the next hunter and they may have bought some tags but they sure didn't get anywhere close to all of them. I and all my buddies got theirs as did thousands of others. The one day sell out was basically due to the high demand.

RE: Question on hunting in Illinois
 

its crazy for them to think that buying a couple thousand NR archery tags is going to save anydeer in il. i mean what would 2000 NR bowhunters kill.maybe 200 deer at a 10 percent sucess rate.they killed 114,000 deer up there in 10 days of gun hunting.PETA nothing but a bunch of idiots.