Hunting Across the River

This may not seem like much of a picture, but it's the view I looked at yesterday from my tree stand on the first day of my first IL bow season hunt. You can actually see part of my shadow in the fork of the tree's shadow. There are several well-worn deer trails coming out of those woods as well as some obvious trails under the stand of trees I'm in. It's at the top of a hill about 250 yards from a neighbor's corn and bean fields. It's got a beautiful view in all directions - when you look around all the leaves that are still there.


This is the view behind my stand, looking down the hill. My bow and arrow are hanging on a bow hanger just to the right of the picture. That's actually a valley that drops off to the left going down to a pond and the crop fields. Danny (my hunting buddy) Younger was in a stand up the draw to the right of this picture. He saw several does, and from all the snorting I heard, a couple of them at least smelled him. Unfortunately, the wind changed on us and blew down the hill as the deer came out. I saw some of the deer that came by Danny, and three more on the distant hill in the next picture.

The tree branch covers the valley that is between me and the next hill. It really goes down steep before it comes back up. This doesn't do justice to how beautiful it is. I can't wait to see all this when the leaves start changing.

My first day of hunting in IL was fun. It's too hot and too dry still, so the deer don't move until just before dark. But, they are loaded with deer and I've never hunted anywhere where the land owners and other locals talk so freely about hoping we get several deer. The deer there really do a lot of damage to the crops and cause a lot of car accidents. I'll be doing my best to help them all I can.