Put all this together and you had a winning hand for short-range hunting tools, including muzzleloaders and slug guns that were simultaneously evolving with more reliable designs, ammunition and optics. Trail cameras of course further refined productive stand sites and helped pinpoint the best times to hunt them.
Portable tree stands were another big leap forward, as were food plots and feeders to concentrate deer into more predictable places and patterns. Many riflemen added them to their arsenals, along with better arrows, broadheads, sights, rests, releases, rangefinders, decoys, calls and scents. Slug gunners and traditional muzzleloader shooters began to score more often, keeping deer numbers reasonably in check at closer ranges. As deer saturated smaller woodlots and creek bottoms, there was less perceived need to reach way out there to shoot one. Thus, in most dreams of deer season, what came to mind was an adventure involving a Winchester 70, Remington 700, Marlin 336, Savage 99, Browning BAR or some similar centerfire rifle.īut that tradition began to fade in the 1970s and especially the ’80s, as whitetails became more entrenched in flat farm country, suburban areas and other places where there were safety concerns over airborne lead traveling too far in the wrong direction. Once there, the best chance of killing one was with a gun effective out to some range. Seasons were short, and hunters often had to travel into “the sticks” to find whitetails. And if you have, I can’t say I blame you.īack in your granddad’s day, most deer woods were a rifleman’s domain. Tracking the Bears game on your phone while sitting in a deer blind does nothing for either experience.If you’ve followed the hunting media in recent years, you might have concluded that a rifleman no longer has a place at the trophy whitetail table.
On Tuesday, the count at Jasper-Pulaski had jumped by 24,200 to 28,652. I couldn’t hear their vocalizing over the traffic on LSD, but it was an awesome sight and one I will not forget.’’ Some flew right over DuSable Lake Shore Drive and others were coming in off the lake, all headed south or southwest. My favorite was from Leslie Borns, who posted: ‘‘During a run on the lakefront path between 2:30 and 4 p.m., I witnessed continuous flocks of sandhills flying overhead. On Sunday, reports came on Illinois Birders Exchanging Thoughts (IBET). in Munster and heard, then saw, two groups of about 50 or so riding a strong tailwind from northwest to southeast toward Jasper-Pulaski. On Thursday, Tom Jurich emailed: ‘‘They’re coming! Out briefly about 10:30 a.m. The big push of sandhill cranes around the area and the counts at Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area in Indiana were weeks behind.