Hunters Harvest More than 68,000 Deer So Far

SPRINGFIELD, IL – The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) reports that hunters in Illinois harvested a preliminary total of 68,037 deer during the opening weekend of the 2010 Illinois firearm deer season, Nov. 19-21. The seven-day firearm season will conclude on Dec. 2-5.

The preliminary total for the first three days of the 2010 firearm season compares with the first weekend harvest of 66,126 deer during the 2009 deer season and 71,894 deer during the opening weekend in 2008. The top county harvest totals last weekend were reported in Pike (1,957), Adams (1,741), Fulton (1,721), Jo Daviess (1,640) and Randolph (1,520).

Hunters harvested 99,493 deer during the entire seven-day firearm deer season last year. The preliminary first-season figures reported for each county include those deer taken on special hunt areas within that county as well as on private land.

“The opening season of firearm deer hunting offered hunters a combination of enjoyable weather and virtually-complete crop harvest,” said IDNR Forest Wildlife Program Manager Paul Shelton. “Rutting activity was still evident, so it all came together for a very successful season with a number of nice bucks harvested.”

The IDNR has issued more than 370,000 firearm deer hunting permits for the 2010 season. Most hunters register their deer harvest online through the IDNR web site or by phoning 1-866-ILCHECK (1-866-452-4325) by 10 p.m. on the day of harvest. Hunters in Boone, DeKalb, Grundy, Kane, LaSalle, McHenry, Ogle, Stephenson and Winnebago Counties take their deer to county check stations (by 8 p.m. on the day of harvest) where the IDNR registers the deer and conducts sampling for chronic wasting disease (CWD).

Approximately 60 percent of the deer taken during the first weekend of firearm hunting were bucks, identical to the first weekend of the firearm season in 2009.

The Illinois firearm deer season concludes Dec. 2-5. The muzzleloader-only deer season is Dec. 10-12. The split late-winter antlerless-only firearm deer season and the special CWD deer season are Dec. 30, 2010-Jan. 2, 2011 and Jan. 14-16, 2011. The state’s 2010-2011 archery deer season continues through Jan. 16 (except closed in firearm counties during the second firearm season Dec. 2-5).

The table below provides preliminary county harvest totals for the first weekend of the firearm deer season and comparable figures for the first season in 2009.

County 2010 2009
Adams 1741 1614
Alexander 296 328
Bond 535 566
Boone 90 102
Brown 892 938
Bureau 1024 820
Calhoun 668 858
Carroll 756 698
Cass 458 494
Champaign 219 171
Christian 459 400
Clark 940 908
Clay 947 942
Clinton 588 581
Coles 560 502
Crawford 819 798
Cumberland 641 617
DeKalb 157 126
DeWitt 283 250
Douglas 131 130
Edgar 565 528
Edwards 325 366
Effingham 774 765
Fayette 1264 1336
Ford 101 74
Franklin 820 779
Fulton 1721 1725
Gallatin 402 421
Greene 986 873
Grundy 300 274
Hamilton 812 872
Hancock 1291 1215
Hardin 696 747
Henderson 449 390
Henry 545 479
Iroquois 502 387
Jackson 1502 1416
Jasper 861 837
Jefferson 1475 1606
Jersey 625 585
JoDaviess 1640 1493
Johnson 1202 1304
Kane 37 38
Kankakee 151 121
Kendall 53 59
Knox 1021 866
Lake 5 9
LaSalle 878 756
Lawrence 399 457
Lee 531 436
Livingston 454 316
Logan 285 235
Macon 200 203
Macoupin 1192 1200
Madison 651 638
Marion 1276 1374
Marshall 569 548
Mason 439 443
Massac 402 425
McDonough 738 707
McHenry 191 215
McLean 550 450
Menard 334 310
Mercer 674 551
Monroe 722 792
Montgomery 820 841
Morgan 626 732
Moultrie 232 206
Ogle 742 645
Peoria 1074 1012
Perry 823 899
Piatt 127 115
Pike 1957 2012
Pope 1294 1275
Pulaski 466 471
Putnam 355 365
Randolph 1520 1576
Richland 545 614
Rock Island 591 578
Saline 720 644
Sangamon 569 541
Schuyler 1130 1114
Scott 377 368
Shelby 1012 996
St. Clair 662 656
Stark 261 186
Stephenson 789 547
Tazewell 514 505
Union 1162 1168
Vermilion 609 472
Wabash 194 211
Warren 429 388
Washington 799 839
Wayne 1210 1247
White 662 692
Whiteside 627 501
Will 208 214
Williamson 1110 1101
Winnebago 307 269
Woodford 700 662
Total 68037 66126

Deer Harvest Up in Williamson

The figures for the 2006 Illinois Firearm Deer Harvest show a decent increase in the number of deer harvested this year in Williamson County.

Hunters took out 1,330 during the first season and 678 in the second season for a total of 2,008. That's up from 2005 when they only bagged 1,884.

Williamson County ranked 15th this year overall. We were 14th last year.

Pike County in western Illinois remains the champ with 3,795 deer harvested. Neighboring Adams County came in second with 3,061.

Here in the region we were beat by Jackson at 2,596, Jefferson at 2,710, Marion at 2,218, Pope at 2,218 and Randolph at 2,763, Union at 2,127 and Wayne at 2,032.

Some of the differences can be explained simply by geography, Jefferson and Marion are 33 percent larger than Williamson. In the region, all but Pope County are larger than us.

Still, one of the reasons for Pike and Adams Counties' success is in part a well-developed system of hunting leases for private lands. In going through the old files I found a proposal about a decade old to do something similar here in Williamson. I'm not an expert in hunting, but it's something we will definitely look into as we work on a county-wide Tourism Development Plan.

Fun With Web Stats... and Squirrels!

Thanks to a report we have to fill out for the Illinois Bureau of Tourism I've been on our stats page for this website today.

I'm impressed with our most recent stats on our site visitation and highly amused at one in particular.

The new WCTB.org website went active in late September. For those last few days we had 1,277 unique users.

In October it grew to 12,037, then declined some in November to 10,790 before shooting up to 33,283 last month in December. Already, we've had 1,529 users on our website yesterday, including eight people at the first hour of the New Year.

What's amusing to me is how one person found our website. They searched for best eating squirrels on Google and our Outdoor Hunting Guide came up as the fourth listing.

Apparently the following bit of text is found in our hunting guide:

While fewer people hunt during early October, some of the most enjoyable hunts and best eating young squirrels are taken during this time of year. ...