Hey everyone, I have looked around on here but just decided to join. I am new to waterfowl hunting (last year was my first season), and I was just wondering if anyone knew of some places I can check out to hunt this winter. I tagged along with a few older guys from work last year a few times, but I would like to try and find some public or cheap land to hunt on my own or with some of my friends that want to hunt, also. I have searched allover the internet but cannot find specific details about all the public spots, so i thought i would just ask and see if anyone could help me out. I do live very close to Horseshoe Lake in Madison County, but borrowing a boat and trying to get a blind in the drawing every morning can be kind of a hassle. Thank you in advance, -Cody

The public sopts on the IL River north of Grafton are draw as well every three years. I think the draw will be next summer if I'm not mistaken. All of those areas require boat and some advanced scouting as it is might difficult fnding your way to the right blind in the dark/ As far as walkins, Carlyle is the only public spot close to you that allows walkins to my knowledge. There are others who can expanjd on the virtues and difficulties of hunting that area. Lake of Egypt also has walking public blinds as does the Union Co Refuge. Union Co has an advance draw via mail or you can take your chances ona daily draw for leftovers or no shows. The duck hunting has grown significantly down there in the past few years. Private land is difficult to come by and not cheap. As an example we pay $500 a piece for our pit lease which is very cheap. Year before last I was paying $800 per man over by Marion. You might send Scott Huschle a PM as he runs a club down here by my town, Freeburg that may have openings. Good luck and let me know if I can be of more help.

1st off welcome aboard...

Ahh the Carlyle zoo, there are ducks there, but lots o people too.

I hunt the Kaskaskia R. Helps to have a boat, but there are places you can walk in as well. You can go to google maps, and look for some holes, then see where you can park near where you want to go. I hope to be hunting out at Scott's this year for geese. I'm not sure how many openings he has if any??? Paying to hunt isn't cheap though. My boat is rarely full, comes closer to the season, anyone (well almost anyone) would be welcome to come along.

Hey Cody I have 12 pits in the ground that shoot 5 guys, 6 of the pits have water out in front of them to draw more ducks to the area.We're only a 1/2 mile from the Kaskaskia river and we also have a 30 acre lake several strip pit lakes on the property and several on neighboring properties.If your interested P.M. me for more information, I'd be happy to answer any of your questions about my place or hunting anywhere else you might want to hunt at.
Also welcome aboard, BOB & FLATLANDER has created a very good website here for everyone to use and enjoy.

The walk-ins at the north end of Carlyle lake can be very succesful, mainly the first 2 weeks of the season. There is also a place on the south end of the lake, between Dam West Acess and Eldon Hazlet. It is called James A. Hawn Acess. There are only 6 steaks there though, one of them actualy has a pit the other 5 you are standing in the brush. You will need your waders for most steaks to either get to it, or to put your decoys out. It is not the best place in the area to hunt, but it is a way to kill birds without a boat.

If you have the chance to get out in the stumps on the North end of the lake. Last year was my first year there and it was killer.

Another place you may want to check into is Pyramid State Park. They usually do well there. I am going to take a day in the next few weeks and check it out, do some scouting because I have never hunted there.

Thanks for the help guys. I think we're deciding to go to the walk-ins at Carlyle on opening day to see how it goes. We have a pit in Lenzburg by some strip pits, but its falling apart so we are planning on just using layout blinds this year. We always saw thousands of Snows over the reserve every time we were out there and always had Canadians flyin around us, but we hardly ever brought any in. I'm just getting the itch because I havent done much fishing this year yet and I read the article about breeding ducks increasing so Im trying to get a good start on scouting places out this year. FullDraw, do you ever do any hunting in Troy? An electrician at work that we're trying to get in good with said he killed out a lot of the times they went to a pit in Troy.

... FullDraw, do you ever do any hunting in Troy? An electrician at work that we're trying to get in good with said he killed out a lot of the times they went to a pit in Troy.

I'm sure he has. If I could sit on my roof and shoot I could kill out every night in the winter. I see a ton of geese fly over, pretty low too. However I do not have any place to hunt out here. My buddy and I are planning on talking to a few farmers before season starts though. We do most of our goose hunting at Dry Lake and around Schuline/Sparta.

really that place is closer to balldwin isnt it that is a good place to hunt i like it getting up at three to try to be the first ones there and end up being like fifth haha but its always got alot of ducks around

really that place is closer to balldwin isnt it that is a good place to hunt i like it getting up at three to try to be the first ones there and end up being like fifth haha but its always got alot of ducks around

Dry Lake and Schiline are two different spots. The place I hunt in Schuline is private strip pit. But yeah, nothing like fighting for a spot at a public place.:rolleyes: My buddy got to carlyle last year at 9:00 at night to get an island at Carlyle and they were already covered. Talk about suck!