Illinois Deer Harvest Numbers

[Blizzard Ridge]

The DNR just came out with the preliminary harvest numbers from the 2 shotgun seasons totaling 7 days.
First Season - 54,452
Second Season - 24,977
Total - 79,429

This is down from 86,847 in 2015

Out of the 100 total counties in Illinois only 9 had an increase from 2015 to 2016

In the counties that I have farms numbers had a steady drop from 3235 in 2015 to 2568 this year. This I would believe. I heard very few shots during the second season. I opted to end up not taking a doe off any of the farms to bring the population back up a bit around the farms that I hunt.

I personally saw an increase in 3 yr old and older bucks this year compared to last year but have noticed that the doe herd has dwindled from years past.
For reference the numbers are:

2002 - Issued 288,570 permits and Harvested 104,478 deer
2009 - Issued 366,302 permits and Harvested 99,755 deer
2015 - Issued 323,155 permits and Harvested 86,847 deer
2016 Issued ? permits and Harvested 79,429 deer

This seems like a considerable drop of 7418 in one year compared to 4723 drop in a eight year period between 02 and 09. Then you can see the drop of 12,908 in 7 years between 09 and 15. It seems to me that the State of Illinois needs to drop tags back down to about 280,000 issued a year and that would fix the problem with herd numbers dropping.

I thought some might find these numbers interesting.

 

[Kwood]

Thanks for sharing. I would have guessed lower. Weather was tough first season.


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[Blizzard Ridge]

Kwood yes it was terrible. Then second season came along with great weather but I think the mature bucks went under ground after first season. I saw a ton of deer and several bucks but just did not see the giants I saw the week prior to first gun season.

 

[dogghr]

I predicted the season here would be 20-40% down this year based on my first few weeks of hunting. Lots of variables. They released data for buck rifle results and it was minimum 25% down in every district of the state. My county was down 30%. Not surprised, and I think season totals will be close to my estimate. But with that, I head out once again with the ML tomorrow. Just never know.

 

[swat1018]

In Indiana the deer population is in a downward spiral in many places. Just like the farm and insurance lobbies have paid for. Can't imagine IL is much different.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I believe it is now put upon the hunters to layoff the deer. I am sure we all know hunter's out there that make sure their tags are filled every year and then some. I hear about these guys going back to walmart every couple days to get more tags so that they can kill even more doe. This unlimited antlerless tag thing in Illinois is a joke. I do not have a problem at all with hunters going out and killing any deer they choose to feed their family whether it be a doe, button buck, 2 yr old 10 point or an old giant buck but what I do have a problem with is guys going out and killing 2 bucks and unlimited amounts of doe year in and year out. If this continues it will be catastrophic for our deer heard. We are just starting to come back from the worst EHD outbreak we have ever had then couple that with all the blood hungry deer killers out there and it has decimated our population as a whole. I know there are decent areas left but as an entire state it seems to me that the numbers are way down. The state is selling more tags than they did years back and killing less deer, that should be an indication things are going south in a hurry.

The State of Illinois will never make the necessary changes to save our deer so we as hunters and land stewards have to do what we can do to preserve our greatest asset as deer hunter's.

 

[Kwood]

Blizzard, I am 100% behind that as well. I don't care if you kill 5 deer if you eat 5 deer and do it ethically. But very few eat 5 deer. Lots of people killing deer to kill deer and give them away.

We had more mature deer on camera than any of the previous 3 year that we have had our property. More mature does as well. EHD recovery is coming around. This year we had almost no rut. We had a great year success wise killing 3 good bucks on our property including one 5+ year old, a 4 year old and a likely 3 year old, but as a whole rut was slow. Warm weather and super moon had mostly night activity. First gun season weather was tough. Second gun season (and this weekend for second muzzleloader weather is good) but you mostly get the more serious hunters. Overall I think this bodes well for next year mature deer, but, I'd like to see some laws and refs change a bit.

I'm anxious for my post gun season camera surveys.


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[Blizzard Ridge]

We took 7 deer off out of 26 huntable farms I have. Every deer came from a different farm. You know I hear everyday how outfitters kill all the deer and that may be true in certain areas. I know for me, say I hunt 25 hunters at a 100% success rate on 140" or better deer, that means we killed 25 deer off of 20,000+ acres, I am not good at math but I think that is one deer per 800 acres none of which are doe. So bump that up a bit and say I hunted 50 hunters and had 100% success rate, so 50 bucks 140" or better off of 20,000+ acres, if math is right that is 1 buck per 400 acres.

I would venture to guess that if you went to all neighboring properties surrounding all of my ground you would find out that more than 1 deer per 400 acres was killed on private ground. Here is the kicker, even if I hunted 50 hunters I would never have a 100% kill rate even in my best years. I would guess that 50% kill rate would be closer to truthful. The way I worked it this year is after a deer was killed on a farm I rotated it out so it would not be hunted unless I had multiple mature bucks "living" on the farm. Living meaning not deer just passing through because they got pushed off of another farm. This is how my operation will run as long as I own it. We are trying to build our two county area back up and the way I see it the more ground I can fully manage the better for the area hunters. A good example say in a perfect world of no trespassing, no poaching and our deer never leaving our property we would kill one deer a year per farm. So say that 400 acre farm has 30 deer living on it and half were doe then theoretically we should have another at least 15 new fawns next spring, bumping us up to 45 deer living on the farm minus the mature buck or two taken off the farm. I would say that is helping the herd more so than hurting the herd. This is the plan I have for my properties until I see the overall herd growth back to where it was 10 years ago. It is too bad we don't live in that perfect world I was dreaming about earlier though.

Is there anyone out there that knows how to train deer not to go outside their property lines Now if we can get all of the kill hungry neighbors to adopt the same system and only take 1 deer buck or doe off each farm than we would have something and our herd could damn near double in a years time. Do that for 5 years than let landowners release tags according to their properties herd health. If our state would do away with the ridiculous kill as many deer as you can afford to buy tags for philosophy and let the land stewards run this thing we would see herds similar to the 2009 herd in no time.

 

[swat1018]

We took 7 deer off out of 26 huntable farms I have. Every deer came from a different farm. You know I hear everyday how outfitters kill all the deer and that may be true in certain areas. I know for me, say I hunt 25 hunters at a 100% success rate on 140" or better deer, that means we killed 25 deer off of 20,000+ acres, I am not good at math but I think that is one deer per 800 acres none of which are doe. So bump that up a bit and say I hunted 50 hunters and had 100% success rate, so 50 bucks 140" or better off of 20,000+ acres, if math is right that is 1 buck per 400 acres.

I would venture to guess that if you went to all neighboring properties surrounding all of my ground you would find out that more than 1 deer per 400 acres was killed on private ground. Here is the kicker, even if I hunted 50 hunters I would never have a 100% kill rate even in my best years. I would guess that 50% kill rate would be closer to truthful. The way I worked it this year is after a deer was killed on a farm I rotated it out so it would not be hunted unless I had multiple mature bucks "living" on the farm. Living meaning not deer just passing through because they got pushed off of another farm. This is how my operation will run as long as I own it. We are trying to build our two county area back up and the way I see it the more ground I can fully manage the better for the area hunters. A good example say in a perfect world of no trespassing, no poaching and our deer never leaving our property we would kill one deer a year per farm. So say that 400 acre farm has 30 deer living on it and half were doe then theoretically we should have another at least 15 new fawns next spring, bumping us up to 45 deer living on the farm minus the mature buck or two taken off the farm. I would say that is helping the herd more so than hurting the herd. This is the plan I have for my properties until I see the overall herd growth back to where it was 10 years ago. It is too bad we don't live in that perfect world I was dreaming about earlier though.

Is there anyone out there that knows how to train deer not to go outside their property lines Now if we can get all of the kill hungry neighbors to adopt the same system and only take 1 deer buck or doe off each farm than we would have something and our herd could damn near double in a years time. Do that for 5 years than let landowners release tags according to their properties herd health. If our state would do away with the ridiculous kill as many deer as you can afford to buy tags for philosophy and let the land stewards run this thing we would see herds similar to the 2009 herd in no time.

I'm assuming IL isn't much different in Indiana. I'm certain our DNR knows what is happening is bad for the herd. Problem is, the legislature has taken much control from the biologists. A good example is our new rifle regs for private land. You can use a .24 OR a .30 caliber bullet. Nothing bigger, smaller, OR IN BETWEEN. Only a politician could come up with that. The only way it gets fixed is with trigger control. Me and my two buddies didn't shoot a deer on any of the land we control around my home in central Indiana. I could kill 5-6 if I wanted. The farm and insurance lobby is strong here, and they want the herd cut -- so it's being cut. I'm guessing that the DNR has no solid facts on the deer population here. Everything is based on harvest numbers, which I believe is flawed. The weekend warriors use to see how fast they could be back to town with a deer in the truck opening day. Many of them still get their deer, but it may take 2 days, instead of 20 minutes. His harvest numbers are the same as the good years. Over-simplified, but I think there is merit to the analysis..

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

My mother was just in the restaurant this morning and this guy was in there from upstate near Chicago. He proceeds to tell her he is in town deer hunting and that he has been here 6 weeks. She asked if he had got a deer yet and he said 20 but he is still waiting on a big buck. She said well you will have a lot of deer to eat this year and he said well I give all the meat away, I don't like deer meat.

So this joker has killed 20 deer and still in the woods today searching for a buck who knows how many more he will kill before he either kills his buck or gives up. Just ridiculous!

 

[Kwood]

That is ridiculous. Blizzard what counties are you in?


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[g squared 23]

Numbers have not really recovered since EHD. We shot one buck on our entire 66 acres. We have yet to shoot a doe, because we have so few mature ones around. We have a lot of scrub bucks around, but nothing mature. Lots of pressure in the surrounding areas, anything with a decent rack gets blasted.

The extremely windy 1st season probably saved the lives of many deer out there.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

That is ridiculous. Blizzard what counties are you in?


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Primarily Clark and Edgar with a few farms in Coles and Crawford as well. Coles is in terrible shape. Our farms in Clark and Edgar are holding fairly steady. I will know more on my next camera checks. I have standing beans so I should get a good inventory of local deer.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

Numbers have not really recovered since EHD. We shot one buck on our entire 66 acres. We have yet to shoot a doe, because we have so few mature ones around. We have a lot of scrub bucks around, but nothing mature. Lots of pressure in the surrounding areas, anything with a decent rack gets blasted.

The extremely windy 1st season probably saved the lives of many deer out there.

I agree the poor hunting conditions did help this year. I am still getting most of my more mature deer on camera so I am sure the majority will make it through the rest of the season.

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I have sent an email to the DNR requesting a callback about our declining deer herd. We still have another late CWD antlerless only season to get through this year which I believe is completely ridiculous to even think of having with these declining numbers. With the colder temperatures and little food out right now you would think my bean plots would be getting hammered by every deer in the county. I have been catching 8 doe and fawns and 11 bucks on camera in one plot on my best buck producing farm. That is 8 doe and fawns in 360 acres. It wasn't too many years ago that a hunter would see 20 - 30 deer in a plot like that on any given day. I have put a no doe kill rule in effect for at least 2 years. The problem is I will be raising them so the neighbors will have more deer to kill.

 

[Doe Shooter]

I have sent an email to the DNR requesting a callback about our declining deer herd. We still have another late CWD antlerless only season to get through this year which I believe is completely ridiculous to even think of having with these declining numbers. With the colder temperatures and little food out right now you would think my bean plots would be getting hammered by every deer in the county. I have been catching 8 doe and fawns and 11 bucks on camera in one plot on my best buck producing farm. That is 8 doe and fawns in 360 acres. It wasn't too many years ago that a hunter would see 20 - 30 deer in a plot like that on any given day. I have put a no doe kill rule in effect for at least 2 years. The problem is I will be raising them so the neighbors will have more deer to kill.

I made a similar complaint to a IDNR guy at one of the deer shows. He politely told me they were not my deer. The good old days were 10 years ago.

 

[zuke]

Here in So. IL a lot of nice bucks were taken Friday afternoon and evening the 1st season. Warm and windy in the morning 50's-60's, then a cold front came threw around noon, thunder and rain. Sun came out by evening.
#'s are not as high as they use to be. We are lucky because our county does not have the late doe season.

 

[g squared 23]

The late winter season is so antiquated I cannot believe it is still around. At one point yes it absolute was necessary because doe numbers were outrageous.

We have a 2 acre standing bean field with no other food plots around for at least a mile. Plenty of beans left in that field. I guess the few deer that are around will be fat?

 

[Blizzard Ridge]

I agree I do not believe this season is necessary anymore myself. It doesn't matter our state doesn't listen to the hunter's. The only people that matter to their decision making is the Chicago bureaucrats and insurance lobbyists.

 

[Doe Shooter]

The late winter season is so antiquated I cannot believe it is still around. At one point yes it absolute was necessary because doe numbers were outrageous.

We have a 2 acre standing bean field with no other food plots around for at least a mile. Plenty of beans left in that field. I guess the few deer that are around will be fat?

I believe the first handgun season was in 1991.My county had it continuously until it was finally rescinded this year. I have declined to participate for the last 3 years.I hope the reduced pressure will help the herd rebound, although I have not seen anything pointing to increased numbers. I hope those out of state hunters realize who pay big money to hunt here ,understand there are better trophy destinations for less money. The bloom is off the rose. Some hunting mags and forums have recognized we have been coasting on reputation for several years now. Right now , we need less harvest. But I see money driving the IDNR , not herd sustainability.