I often think about how much hunting has changed over the years I am fortunate to live in Illinois where the deer are abundant and yes, on occasion, very large. That wasn’t always the case though. Our very first deer season of the 20th century opened on October 1, 1957. On that day there was only one, yes you read that right, one, deer taken. No, I don’t think it was so much a lack of hunters, but a lack of deer. Only thirty-three counties out of our total of one hundred and two were open for hunting that year.
Moving forward to 1963, there was still not an adequate deer population to open all the counties for hunting, but Illinois did have an opportunity to trade some of its whitetail for some wild turkeys from West Virginia; thus began the reintroduction of the eastern wild turkey into Illinois. My own arrival into this world was in 1965 so it’s no wonder I wasn’t born into a hunting family. I had never really considered the fact before, but at that time there simply wasn’t anything to hunt! By my teenage years, I was attending turkey restocking meetings with my father. In the late 70’s or early 80’s we were fortunate enough to have some eastern turkeys stocked near our own land. I would like to thank the IL DNR, without their dedicated restocking efforts, we would not have the outstanding hunting opportunities that we have today.
I drew my first deer tag somewhere around 1984 and harvested my first deer that year, a very nice doe. I was using a single shot shotgun taped together with duct tape and wearing a pair of regular green insulated coveralls, no camo, no fancy scent control and I was sitting on the ground under a tree. That doe was about 20 yards away. I’ve drawn a deer tag every year since and sometimes I harvest a deer, sometimes I don’t. Somehow I can’t imagine being anywhere but in the woods during deer season! My one regret over all these years is that I never took photos of me with my harvests. Maybe because it was just me out there and maybe also because I don’t consider myself very photogenic, but now I think it would have been really nice to have those memories to look back on.
So what else has changed? I think hunting has become very commercialized, maybe to the detriment of the sport. In my earlier years, I could hunt virtually any piece of land I wanted just for the asking. Now, except for the piece I own, everything is leased up either by outfitters or out of state hunters. That is a double edged sword. It is good in that it gives outsiders the opportunity to hunt but bad in that it allows the local people nowhere to hunt. Keep in mind, public land in Illinois is pretty minimal so for a lot of common folks hunting is getting to become something that is harder and harder to do just because of land access issues. I find that very sad.
Camo, scent control products, equipment, it’s all very commercialized. If a company will make it, strategically market it as a “must have”, then be assured we will buy it. I guess I am no different in that respect. I tend to buy the latest and greatest gadgets for hunting only to use them once and then they collect dust in the bottom of the closet.
And women in hunting? I can’t remember being treated as anything less than an equal. Maybe it was because I expected that; maybe it’s just because of the area I live in. I know there are other women around this area who hunt, but we don’t get together to discuss our outdoor adventures. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you their names, I just know they do exist. When I turn on the TV though, it seems like it is all women hunting and I find myself thinking “where have all the men gone!!” So yes, that has been a tremendous change over the last few years, and one of the changes for the better.
You know, now that I think about it, I still have that old pair of green insulated coveralls and I even have that old duct taped shotgun leaning up in the corner of my dad’s broom closet. Maybe this fall I’ll take those coveralls and that gun and spend a day remembering what it was like in the beginning.
