Good news for Illinois deer hunters

[RackBlaster]

Hopefully these proposal's go through, an extra day first gun season and no more lottery.

http://www.dnr.state.il.us/pubaffairs/2009/January/joint.html

[MUDRUNNER]

Boy, I don't know. As far as the late doe season being extended, I see big bucks killed every year that have dropped their horns. I think this change would make it worse.

I really think the deer numbers are way down in Illinois right now anyways because of last years drought and EHD, and it may take a year or two for them to recover.I know on the farm that I hunt we took 8 deer between all the seasons so far, and usually by this time we have about 15.I would say even deer sightings in general were down about %50 on our place.

I do like the otc firearm tag idea.It seems that they give everyone who applies one anyways.

I don't know that extending the first season will make much of a differance, but it gives me a reason to take another day off work.

[fly]

I don't have a major opposition with the reccommendations. I do agree with MUDRUNNER that extending the late season to 9 days worries me if the days occur after mid-January.

I'd like to see it extended to 9 days, but keep the days prior to mid-January.

I too think there are less deer in IL. which is why the numbers were down. I'd say the weather was the best we've had in years! No rain and cool temps. The rut (from what I hear, because I didn't notice it) occured late which would have been ideal for the first gun season.

Extending season dates is a quick and easy way to meet harvest number goals. The best way would be to increase access! With the exception of Southern IL. (Shawnee Forest) public land deer hunting is pathetic!

I wish they would have suggested moving up the archery season from Oct. 1st to mid-September!

[SuperMn106]

I hunt Illinois a little bit. I just can not bring it to myself to pay the outrageous money for the non-resident tags. What I do is just by a Antlerless tag for bow. I really wish the tags would go down a little bit.

As far as the season dates changing. I have always thought that the Illinois DNR has had the best way of managing the herd with the short gun seasons.

The only one I think would be a bad change would be extending the late doe season. Like was mentioned before that would give the oppurtunity to shoot more bucks who has already dropped.

[Bowtech_archer07]

I think deer numbers are way down in IL right now too. I don't have any major objections other than what has already been stated about late-winter season being extended and running into late January. There are a lot of bucks that have dropped their horns already at that time. If they had the season starting around Jan 3 or 4 and running through Jan 12, then it wouldn't be too bad.

[Mach1]

Like others mentioned, I'm not a fan of extending the late doe season. I'm also not a big fan of adding a day to the first gun season. I've known a handful of guys not get firearm permits after applying, but it's been a few years since I've heard of that happening. Also, I'd rather see bow season start in mid-September and end Dec. 31, that way I'd have more time for waterfowl hunting.

[SuperMn106]

Another thing that I have been thinking about. I am sure all of you Illinois residents would probably disagree with me but here it goes.

If they expanded on the number of permits that get drawn out of the lottery to be able to make money, but then have to sell them over the counter because they do not get the amount of applicants that they were expecting. I think it would be a better idea to decrease the amount of the non-resident tags possibly by half and I bet they would sell a lot more.

I think it is ridicilous that someone has to pay $400 to be able to hunt. I am all for charging non-residents more to hunt but not that much. When I go back home to Michigan to hunt I gladly pay the $128 or something like that.

But then again I can just stick to paying $70 for a doe tag and quit complaining.