Tomorrow is opening day of gun season in Illinois. Good luck to all of you out there. My youngest and I have had a heck of a year so far. He has 2, one a ten pt, about 130 inches and a button buck with his bow. I have shot several, but only one nice buck. I had 7 bucks under me tonight within 30 minutes. One, a small 4 pt, came back 5 times,,,,He was VERY interested in something laying over by the fence. My youngest has been a lot of help this year dragging them out. Bless his heart, with the big one at college, he has been my only help.
Be careful tomorrow

Sounds like you have a great spot to hunt deer. Grat bonding time with your son. He'll never forget it.

You know, the oldest son and I have always took him with US. Now he has me all to himself and he is like a different person. He has really came into his own and is pretty pleased that it's just us. I am enjoying every second, because I know that he will go away to college after next year, just like the first one did.

today started out exciting. We had barely left the truck when I saw a nice deer standing under one of our treestands. I asked my son if he could shoot that far and he said he couldn't see that far with all the fog. It finally moved off before he could shoot. Tonight he was sitting where it came out and I sat in a weedfield. Of course it walked right up to me, but I had just shot a 145 inch 8pt, so he is safe for at least one more day. We only heard 3 shots this morning and 4 tonight. has anyone else heard many shots?

Sounds like some good huntin between both of you. It's great takin the kids to the woods and teaching them how to be great ethical hunters. I took both my boys, my oldest Friday afternoon and he just wanted to take a doe so thats what he did. I took my youngest today and we had a nice buck chasin a doe in on us. Could not really tell if he was mature enough to shoot and really did not have a shot so we passed. But this evening we had a big ole fat doelischious come in and he let the .50 Omega bark. She only ran about 100 yards and fell in a cut bean field. No trackin there.
Now come second season we all have muzzle loader tags and I also get to hunt. So it should be fun.
If y'all don't have a muzzle loader to shoot your missn out. Go buy a doe tag over the counter and get out there and help manage the herd.
And remember if you keep shooting little bucks they will never grow into big bucks.


Oh yea I did shoot at a nice 10 pointer thursday evening with my bow and missed. Don't ask! Then a big doelischious came in and I put the smack down on her. Maybe next time with 10 pointer.

Good luck to all out there and most of all be safe.

CX.

__________________
Front site press.
crappiextreme.com
IL board Moderator

Sounds like fun times to all...cx sounds like you and crappie10 both have enough meat to last a couple years and dont need any more deer! As for the shooting little bucks and not letting them grow, if you hunt public ground its a different story because its a good bet if you pass on a borderline buck, some1 else wont. Many of us arent lucky enough to have private property to hunt. As for me...I hunt mostly public land, and im a meat hunter, iv got one in the freezer this year already and looking for one more, big buck little buck doe...depeneds on the day and body size of them! If its a tiny antlered buck but nice body, SMACK!

__________________
-Birdman-

Tyler it's funny you should say that. The big doe that Devin took Saturday did come off of public property. I have known about this place for years but really never gave it much thought until this year because it is not easy to get to. So I though anyway!
I have been meaning to scout it out for bow hunting but just never really got around to it. So me and a buddy decided to go in there Saturday with my boy Devin and see what we could find out. Me and Devin sat down for about an hour on the ground then this doe along with several others came right by us.
When we left Chris decided he was going to go back in the morning on Sunday. Chris called me after he got there and said he met an older couple in there hunting also. He said they were a very nice couple from Bloomington. Chris told this guy about Devin taking his deer the day before. The guy said we were even lucky to see a deer let along take one because there were a bunch of out of state idiots in there DRIVING deer Saturday. Now don't get me wrong I am not calling all of the out of state people idiots. Just the ones that come here and ruin it for everyone else just because they don't know how to hunt or are not safe or ethical hunters.
For one, it is illegal to make a drive for deer on State property in IL. And they better be glad I did not see them doing it.

So with that said, I think that goes to show that if people would just go sit and not ruin it for everyone else then maybe they could also take a deer.

I am a trophy and a meat hunter. I usually keep one or two deer a year and I give the rest to a guy that has nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. He will take everyone we give him. I am just one of those hunters that will take a doe and not a small buck. If everyone would do that then we would have a much better balanced herd. I see where they rate IL as one of the best states to kill a "HUGE BUCK". Well let me tell ya it will not last like that forever with the way things are going. And I do not want to see that happen.

We are losing our public property to a lot of people that should not be allowed to hunt and I hate when gun season comes in because of it.

Sorry I did not mean to ramble about this subject but this kind of stuff really gets to me sometimes.

CX.

__________________
Front site press.
crappiextreme.com
IL board Moderator

Im very lucky to have a couple small private places to hunt. Im also a meat hunter that shares with the less fortunate. Ive been passing smaller bucks for several years allthough I shot a 120 class 8 point last season after 2 weeks of only seeing 1 big buck. But its starting to pay off Ive seen several big deer this year and shot a 10pt with a broken g3 Friday a.m.

__________________
Pluckin perch

Nice Deer!

__________________
If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles.