Opening day: too nice, too warm?
By8 a.m. Friday, I debated shucking my bibs and considered hunting the afternoon in sneakers. Opening day for Illinois’ first firearm deer season came in almost too nice. But Saturday and Sunday will be different with rain (maybe snow spits) and cooler temperatures.
By noon Friday, hunters had reported nearly
6,700 deer, said Dan
Skinner, forest wildlife program manager for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. “We had pretty good conditions across the state, though some hunters might think it’s too warm,” he said.
Curt Pazdro messaged a photo of a big 11-point buck shot out of the stand of his son, All-America bass angler Wyatt, who was in class at McKendree.
Gary Bloom messaged a photo of Erin Henne with a 12-point buck shot early Friday in Edwards County. Bloom, the great allaround outdoorsman in Chicago, missed the season with a mild case of COVID-19.
The pandemic brought the biggest change. The IDNR closed deer-check stations in CWD counties. But biologists stressed that hunters should still have deer tested for CWD and must report their harvest before 10 p.m.
“I want to take a moment and emphasize the NEED to still collect CWD samples!” hunter heritage biologist Nicky Strahl said. “We still do not recommend consuming CWDpositive meat, and the only way to know if it is CWD-positive is to get it tested. We have our biologists able to do that, several barrels, and of course our fantastic vendors that are working with us in sample collection.”
For CWD test drop-offs, go to www2.illinois.gov/dnr/programs/CWD/Documents/ CWDSamplingLocations.pdf.