Hunting

[TimK]

I know that this board is mainly used for fishing but I also enjoy hunting and would like to try Shab.

I know there is deer archery and dove. I'd like to try dove. Is Shab worth it? Is trying to hunt it like trying to launch a boat in the summer on a weekend?

Any advice would be appreciated - fall is very close and I'm getting the itch since I didn't get out last year.

Also - are you allowed to waterfowl hunt (Geese specifically) on the Shab reservation?

Thanks to anyone that can help!!!

[BrentK]

Tim,

I have not hunted dove at shab but if its anything like hunting whitetails the crowds are insane. When we go deer hunting we get to the check-in around 430-5am just to get in line and hope to get a spot and we have been sent home more than once because the spots filled up too fast. I have herd that the dove hunting is just as bad, i was told the poeple line up around the openings in the woods and when a bird flies by anyone who might be able to reach it shoots and its a fight for who gets to keep it.

About this time last year I started at my home in sandwich and drove to shab stopping at every farm along the way asking for permission to hunt and i got one guy to say yes. Maybe try that method.

Fishing with a crowd around you is one thing but being surrounded by other poeple with guns is not my idea of a good time. I even went so for as to join a pheasant hunting club and the owner lets me hunt deer, dove, rabbit, and coyote at no charge.

I have hunted wisconsin and south dakota all my hunting days and finding a place to hunt is a piece of cake. But if you think finding a place to fish is hard try and find a place to hunt in northern illinois. :( Thats why shab is so overcrowded there is nowhere else to go.

Hope this helps. Let me know if i can give any more info.

[Reggie]

Tim
Hunt the latter part of the season and always during the week. Mondays are great, and thursdays. This will be my first year hunting deer at shab, but I have watched and filmed them for three. Big bucks are still there late. As for doves, well its just my opinion, but they are too hard to hit and too little to eat to full with.

[NxtRecordholder]

I don't enjoy killing things so I don't hunt, but let me add this:

Shabbona during deer hunting season sounds like first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. I was honestly nervous one day last fall while fishing. There was constant gunfire coming from every direction. One poor buck was shot by some Mr. Magoo hunter that didn't kill it instantly and it ran scared right through the parking lot, off the boat launch pier and into the water. As I fished near the campground shore, I heard an odd huffing sound off of the peninsula opposite the campground launch. As I approached, I saw it was that poor beautiful deer struggling for breath in the weeds right by the water. Before those of you that enjoy killing things jump down my throat - let me say that I have no problem with those that deer hunt and eat their kill. Venison tastes pretty good actually, and it looks a lot better on a plate than on my windshield at 45 mph. I just don't understand people that kill animals that they have no intention of eating. Frankly I find that disturbing. This isn't the forum for that debate, so please don't respond! I just wanted to share my "Deer Hunting at Shabbona" story with everyone.

[Reggie]

I'm sorry nxtrecordholder but I must reply. I thought the park was archery hunting only, no guns allowed. So if you heard all that shooting, it was probally from the private land on the east side, east of the tracks. What happen to the deer that you seen gasping for it's last breath? Your right they are beautiful animals, but they are not bambies. Killing is only 1% of the hunt, the other 99% you'll never be able to enjoy. Its just like fishing, would you still fish for muskies even if your not catching any? Why? If you caught the next Record would you keep it? Why? Fish. Deer, Doves, it doesnt matter, in order for sportsmen to enjoy what we do something must die, even if your strictly catch and release, some die.

[NxtRecordholder]

Huh, that really surprises me that there is no gun hunting in Shabbona for deer. From the non-stop gunshots I hear while fishing there in the fall, I thought for sure the place was crawling with guns. The people hunting the private land adjacent to Shab must sit right on that property line, because I hear it from every direction - to the point where I either want to duck, or move to a spot surrounded by some elevation.

As for that deer, I'm not sure what happened to it. I didn't have a cell phone with me, so the deer probably just died a really slow, painfull death right there on shore. It's too bad someone couldn't have put it out of it's misery.

[TimK]

Thanks for the info guys. It'll help I'm sure.

Next -

Good chance the small army you heard were dove hunters. It takes an average of 10 - 20 shells to knock down one dove. They're fast little critters.

Shab is far too small (IMHO) to let loose shotgun deer. You'd have at least one guy dead every year.

Hope this clears things up about all the noise.

[Shabby]

Tim,
go to the DNR Shabbona Lake site (click here) (http://dnr.state.il.us/lands/landmgt/PARKS/R1/SHABBONA.HTM) and click the "Hunting" link at the top of the page (or read the page if you like, it's one way to learn what is allowed and what isn't) and you will find the waterfowl info that you seek. Sounds like someone may as well pay his pet@ dues and get it over with, huh?;-)

[Dropshot1]

Hey, I'm familiar w/that PETA. Saw it on a bumper sticker the other day, People for Eating Tasty Animals! I do sympathyze on the dying deer in the brush however. I know it is not always easy to track & find a wounded animal, but people who don't have the skills or the energy (read lazy) to find an animal that they know they have hit shouldn't be allowed to hunt. The hunters that I know wouldn't go home until they retrieved that deer period. Those were the rules we were taught as kids & I think they still have some merit. JMHO