Soon to be live in Illinois

[BowSlayer]

Tree Phantom and I are heading North to the land of the giants after lunch today. Got a report from my buddy that's up there that the bucks are chasing like crazy so hopefully we can connect. Stay tuned. I will turn this into a live hunt thread when we get there. Should be on stand by tomorrow afternoon and will be there for a week unless we both kill sooner.

[BowSlayer]

We are finally live in Western Illinois. In a tree overlooking a bean field that was just harvested. The landowner screwed us good on this trip but we are going to try to make the best of it. Follow along if you want.

[BowSlayer]

Got the decoy out. Pretty cold here. Mid 20s at daybreak. The landowner gar holed us but we are still trying.

[easttexasbucks]

Good luck

[Mitch914]

Good luck

[Shane]

Good luck! What happened with the landowner?

[BowSlayer]

Good luck! What happened with the landowner?

Since I don't think there's been a deer by this tree in 12 years I'll go ahead and type some of it.

I hunted this place last year and it was great. We had our own pasture with river bottoms and cut corn fields. I never connected with a big one but I did have some close encounters. So we decided we would try again this year to make it happen. I kept in contact with the landowner all Spring and Summer and he said everything was good and we could do the same thing we did last year. He told me there would be no hunters here before us and that the only hunters would only hunt the first shotgun season which starts Nov 22 this year. So, I mailed him a check. I called him a few times after that just to check in and we talked about my game plan for hunting that piece of property. Fast forward to Friday. I called and told him we were on our way and should be there mid day Saturday. He said he would be here when we got here. So, we showed up and talked a little and he told us there was a couple of guys that were just down the road that would show us the property. I told him I didn't need anybody to show me and I already knew the exact tree I was going to climb. That's when he told us "you can't hunt there this year". I said "why?" He said because he was going to be harvesting over there all week. That really ticked me off but I didn't say much at that point. So we follow him down the road and he introduces us to 2 guys and says they have been hunting here for 2 weeks. Then he told the other guys "you can tell them what's really going on after I leave". And he drives away. These guys then told us that Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton are filming a hunt on our pasture all week. I was ticked. These guys had already killed their bucks and were shooting does now. We walked and scouted our "new" spot for a few hours and could barely find a deer track here and there. I was fuming by now so we go back to the landowners house and I told him we never would have come if he had been honest with me. We drove 14 hours and both took off work. He got ticked and said " I'll just give you your money back and you can go back to Texas ". So I said " great, hand it over and we will leave". The he crawfished and said "that ain't gonna happen". So, here we sit on a shot out day lease where we will be lucky to see a squirrel. Grrrrr

[Chuckfu]

Man that sucks. Good luck

[TheHammer]

Thrash time!

[BowSlayer]

Well I did some scouting mid day yesterday and found a spot down in a bottom that has lots of sign do I moved over here. Hunted it yesterday evening and saw 2 shooters and one of them was a giant but he would not stop running his doe. I'm back in here this morning hoping he's still around. It's currently 14 degrees with snow on the ground. Stay tuned and maybe I can get it done.

[TildenHunter]

Good luck Hal

[CFBASEBALL09]

Good luck man hopefully it all works out and you get a good one.

[bearintex]

I saw the title as "Soon to live in Illinois". I was going to reply with "Why on Earth would you want to live in that Communist run cesspool of a state?" Second only to Kalifornia.

[Duane]

May not be the pasture you planned on hunting... but you're in Illinois, cold front, bucks rutting... could be worse. Good luck and drill a big one!

[BowSlayer]

No luck this morning. I did pass up a 130 class 10 point but everything else I saw was small. At least I'm seeing deer now so that's an improvement.