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Illinois public land 9 point in December By: John Eberhart
2007 was a very good year for the Eberhart’s. It started out with Chris flying in from Germany, jumping in his mini-van that he stores at his brother Jon’s house in Michigan, driving umpteen hours by himself to the bad lands of North Dakota, and taking an absolute monster 171 inch 14 point on public land from an area where those types of bucks are not supposed to exist.
On a couple occasions in the past when Chris has taken good bucks early in the season he has rubbed it in a bit by saying “well it looks like I got you this year”. My reply was always “we’ll see”, and I always ended up with the upper hand. For some odd reason, he didn’t make that statement this year, because if he had I was ready to throw in the towel and say “yep” you surely have.
Jon took the next two bucks from state land in northern Michigan. They were both 8-points with the first coming on the second evening of season and the second coming on the evening of the ninth, both from the same red oak. There is a white oak 50 yards away from the red oak and when it has acorns Jon hunts from it because deer prefer white oak acorns over red oak acorns. This year however, the white oak did not produce and the red oak was loaded, and both of Jon’s 8-points were feeding under the red oak when he took them.
The second 8-point Jon took was large enough to qualify for Commemorative Bucks of Michigan’s record book.
As I age, my kids are reaching their prime, they are awesome bow hunters, and while I have not been accustomed to getting pounded by my kids, I am going to have to start getting used to it.
In late October I finally made the scoreboard with an 18-inch inside spread 9-point from northern Michigan. He came through on an evening hunt while checking his core area for estrous does. I used waders to access my hunting location across a river, and a canoe to get him out.
In mid November during Michigan’s gun season I took Jon on a two week out of state hunt to Iowa and Kansas to continue bow hunting. I drew first blood by taking a beautiful 135-inch 10-point. On the last day in Iowa Jon took an absolutely horrifically ugly 5-point, not a typical 5-point mind you. This buck was all busted up and from what we could see it likely had at least 10-points before the fighting started. All the points other than the brow tines and one G-2 were busted off right at their base where they met the main beam.
By the time we got to Kansas the main rut was winding down and whenever we saw a doe in estrus she had every buck in the area chasing her, because most of the other does had already been bred.
On the third morning I sent Jon to a draw between two picked crop fields. The previous morning I had seen an awesome buck there and I really wanted Jon to get a crack at him. That morning Jon had four different mature bucks pursuing a hot doe and by his description one of them was the whopper I had seen the previous morning. Jon took a shot at the big guy at 20 yards, but in his haste to get off a shot he didn’t check for limb travel clearance. The bottom cam on his bow ticked a branch upon his release and steered his arrow right over the top of the bucks back, that’s bow hunting.
Jon was absolutely sick because he was the biggest buck by far that Jon had ever seen while bow hunting. He thought about skipping the evening hunt and I said, no way! The hot doe was likely still in the area and although the draw was long it was very narrow and basically offered the only available cover in the area.
That evening Jon saw 3 mature bucks pursuing the same hot doe and he rectified his issues and took an awesome, clean, nothing broken, 132 inch 9-point from the same tree. The original plan was to hunt another three days, but I was comfortable with not filling my Kansas tag, so we left for home.
That brings this story to where we originally started, December in Illinois.
The original plan was for a friend, Jim Powers, and myself to go bow hunting at Panther Creek State Park in Illinois in early January. Jim had hunted there during the late season on several occasions in the past and sort of knew the area. After talking to a friend of his Jim mentioned trying a place called Starved Rock State Park, which is located about an hour southwest of the Chicago area.
Starved Rock was several hours closer than Panther Creek and due to our work schedules we would have to drive separate vehicles and leave at different times, so this area seemed worth researching.
I went to the Illinois DNR website and found some information about the park and a phone number. I called the park headquarters several times and talked to a different person each time. They all said that even though the park got gun hunted it still held some good bucks and that they were pretty evenly distributed throughout the 20,000 plus acres that Starved Rock and Matheisen state parks encompassed.
The two parks butt up to one another and are quite unique in how they are operated for deer hunting. There are over 30 parking lots scattered throughout the two parks that are designated for hunters. Each lot only allows a pre-designated amount of vehicles (3 to 7) at any one time.
In the Matheisen park there is a maintenance building where you are required to sign in prior to hunting and sign out when finished or switching parking lots. When you sign in you get a parking pass with a corresponding number to the parking lot you will be parking in. That pass is hung from your vehicles rear view mirror when parked, so that your vehicle is easily identified by a DNR officer. At the end of each day an officer checks in all the passes and if any are missing and the vehicle is still parked in the lot, a search will ensue.
On December 15th a nasty snow storm passed through central Illinois dumping quite a bit of snow. On Monday the 17th I looked at the weather forecast for that area and it forecasted cold weather for the remainder of the week. I couldn’t take it, I knew the main rut had been over for several weeks and the deer would have a defined feeding routine, which in the snow, would be easy to locate.
Having never been there before I printed aerial photo’s of the entire area and set my alarm for 1am on Tuesday morning. If I left by 1:30am my arrival time should be right about daybreak on Tuesday morning, and that is exactly when I arrived.
Two of the employees I had spoken with mentioned that the southernmost portion of the Matheisen park received the least amount of pressure, so that is where I scouted first, parking lot 11. That portion of the park was a bit rugged but not near as bad as they made it sound. It had several deep gorges running through it that dumped runoff into the Vermillion River which bordered the east side of that specific park property. Going down the hills was rather simple in the deep snow, but climbing them was a task, I fell from slippery footing several times.
At the very back of the property very close to where it dropped nearly straight down into the river, I spooked several deer and found a small area (about 2 acres) of thick briars that were still holding their very green leaves. All of the previous timber I had walked through was relatively open with little browse and deer sign, but this area had good deer sign and even a few new rubs.
Unfortunately there was absolutely no way of getting into that location without spooking the deer I wanted to hunt because that is where they were feeding and bedding, but I set-up a tree in the middle of the briars anyway. Somewhat frustrated, I checked out of area 11, studied the aerial, and checked into a different area.
I swear I walked the entire area before finding a location that I felt had potential. This patch of timber was located in the middle of several tall weed fields, and it was obvious by the runways going in and out of them that the gun hunters had pushed the deer into these fields. The weeds were so tall and dense that they could not be successfully hunted with any weapons or with a pop-up blind because the rules stated that nothing could be cut.
Picking out the exact hunting location was made relatively easy by the fresh snow. I found a small patch of Prickly Locust trees in which the snow beneath them was churned up. Locust trees are the ones that grow those huge dark beans. Under normal circumstances Locust beans are a secondary food source, but with the deep snow covering up grasses and other browse, they appeared to be a primary food source.
By the time I set-up a tree in that location it was getting dark, and I was dead tired. I checked into the hotel, cooked some hamburger helper in the kitchenette and hit the sack.
My first hunt would be from parking lot 11. Even though the walk to my tree was at least a mile I arrived at the briar patch an hour and a half before daybreak, and just as I thought, I spooked deer from the area when I arrived. I hung in my Ambush saddle until around 10am watching what seemed to be 100 squirrels, never saw a deer while on stand. On my way out after pulling my steps, I thought about how good that location would be during pre-rut in early November.
I checked out of lot 11 and signed into lot…, I will likely hunt there again in December. I went to the parking lot, ate lunch, and took a short nap before heading into the woods at 2:45pm. About an hour before dark a respectable 8-point came in and started feeding a mere 8 yards away on Locust beans, he was followed shortly by a mature doe.
At one point I actually considered taking him, but never took my bow off its hanger. It was interesting to watch as each time he pawed the ground several beans would pop-up from the snow. He would pick them up by their ends and chew them down, similar to watching a kid sucking up spaghetti.
As darkness was setting in the 8-point started staring through the timber. A bigger buck was slowly meandering through the timber towards us. We were now a team, he was my watchdog and he didn’t even know it. The buck moved in to within 30 yards and started feeding, but he was facing directly towards the tree. I could clearly see 5 points on the right side of his rack, but could not make out the other side, and I surely didn’t want to shoot a buck with a messed up rack like the one Jon took in Iowa.
Each time he went to paw the snow he took a step forward. Soon he was within 20 yards, and although he was still facing me I could now see that his tines coming off his left beam were still intact. I decided to try and take this buck and took my bow off the hanger and rested its bottom cam on my upper-thigh, it was now in the ready position.
For some unknown reason he turned broadside and started walking. I quickly came to full draw and vocally blatted to stop him, but he didn’t stop. My second blatt was a bit louder and he stopped about 18 yards away but behind the tops of some small saplings that were between us.
It seemed like forever as I tried to find a hole to slide an arrow through. Finally I released my arrow and it found its mark right behind the shoulder blade. I watched as the buck ran out of sight. He covered about 300 yards before expiring, but the snow made for easy tracking. My entry was right behind the shoulder but he was quartering towards me and I only hit one lung but also passed through the liver.
He carried 9-points and had a 16-inch inside spread. I was very happy to take such a nice buck on public land after gun season.
When I got back home I was hesitant to call Jim and tell him I took a buck, after all he didn’t even know I was going to scout the area. I was relieved when Jim E-mail me saying he would not be able to make our January hunting trip. I then sent him an E-mail about the 9-point and that everything was OK. He replied by calling me a butthead (which I deserved), and followed it up with a congratulatory phone call.
