[explorer08]

Headed out to Matthiessen State Park with high hopes for some dove. After four hrs. of torture decided to call it a day. We hunted field 3. Tally for the ENTIRE FIELD was 0 doves shot, 0 doves even observed flying. Had to be the worse day of dove hunting I have ever endured. Did they all die off from Covid?? I did see two doves on the 80 mile ride home. On the bright side, don't have to clean doves and don't have to clean the shotgun.

[Theboy160]

I was Des Plains opening day. The rain came in at 12:30 so we left and came back at 4:00. We managed 7 doves between the 2 of us. My dad and uncle went there on the 2nd and shot 4 total. I’ll say there are doves all over in the area as I drive to and from work.

[scattermaster]

Results:

Jim Edgar Panther Creek SFWA: 88 hunters, 829 doves harvested, 9.4 doves per hunter

Snakeden Hollow SFWA: 24, 168, 7.0

Kankakee River SP: 11, 66, 6.6

Iroquois County SWA: 31, 115, 3.7

Silver Springs SFWA: 67, 188, 2.8

Des Plaines SFWA: 35, 67, 1.9

Johnson-Sauk Trail SRA: 92, about 150, 1.6 (some cards missing, results likely higher)

Green River SWA: 85, 135, 1.6

Shabbona SP: 43, 44, 1.0

Chain O’Lakes SP: 24, 8, 0.3

I was at JST, good sunflowers, but still green, they mowed last week, however sunflowers needed to be brown and picked three weeks ago. Ended up with six, they had a unexpected farmer transition probably caused the late planting. My buddy was at Green River, small sunflowers and left at 3 with no birds. Hunting private yesterday for 3 hrs and got 11, just a mowed grass field, nothing special except a lack of skybusters, under a box of shells spent.

The IDNR is not funded well or use there resources efficiently. I understand Green River equipment lease was not renewed, so no tractor, you can't build it if you don't have the necessary tools.

Look at the long term harvest rates on public below, its shows the trends. More doves were shot on public +100k in 2006, then in the last 5 years combined. Looks to be a correlation with the decline in dove hunting, followed a few years later by hunter trips, no birds leading to less participation, yet acreage available is up.

Worse is the duck situation, in 1991 terrible drought in the pothole region and three bird limit, yet the same amount of ducks were harvested on public as the last two years with 6 birds liberal limits, and great production. Again, the DNR is not using the available resources efficiently.

It seems like the state workers are beat down so much with no available resources, they just surrendered. There use to be a lot of passion and competition for the high harvest between sites, Silver Springs used to be the top area in the state, now a meager 2.8 birds per hunter. We need to find a way to reignite the passion at the sites.

https://www2.illinois.gov/dnr/hunting/D ... 9-2020.pdf

[explorer08]

scattermaster, do you have the tally at Matthiessen?

[scattermaster]

No, but the GW said they had the best sunflowers.

[billebob5]

Silver Springs yesterday
Saw about 10 doves flying. Had a shot at 1, missed
3.5 hours in I left.
I was in field 2S

I counted 92 shots in 3.5 hours across 4 fields, including my own.

[WalleyeRanger]

scattermaster wrote:

It seems like the state workers are beat down so much with no available resources, they just surrendered. There use to be a lot of passion and competition for the high harvest between sites, Silver Springs used to be the top area in the state, now a meager 2.8 birds per hunter. We need to find a way to reignite the passion at the sites.

To your point - no funding and the powers that be don't give a dang about the DNR and public hunting. They seem content to have one crown jewel, JEPC and let the rest drift off. As long as we are producing revenues from the outdoors that can be swept into the general fund, they're content.

So many things for the IL public hunter to lament...

Deer harvest targets set based on vehicle/deer collision target metrics and then outfitter demand
Lack of public hunting acres / access
Lack of investment in the acres available - poor quality opportunity
Mismanagement of the programs that were "working". State run controlled Pheasant, for example...

I wish there was a clear answer with regard to what it will take to get Springfield, the Governor and legislature both, to value our natural resources and public opportunity to engage with them.

[BigB]

Doves seem to always be where you can't hunt them. I probably see 100 by my house daily flying around without a care in the world. Best hunting I;ve ever had for them was my SIL house in Nebraska basically sitting 50 yards off their back deck on the edge of a corn field 50 yards from a cattle pond. If I wasn't there just to visit family I probably would have killed me limit easily every day for three days. I would have gone through at least 10 boxes of shells though!