does anyone hunt public land or could point a new guy toward some good public land wether archery or shotty, thanks for your help boys seems like a sweet forum

I hunt a lot of public ground... Down here in the southland is where 90% of the state ground is. You'll want to check out Shawnee NF, Pyramid SP, and Kaskaskia River FWA.... These are the biggies out here. Some are mostly boat access, some have 4 points on a side restriction... I think your too late for applying for a shotgun tag, and if you're outta state, you may still be able to get archery... I'm not sure though...

Actually you have until August 14th to enter the second shotgun drawing and then random daily drawings following that. See the ILDNR website for information.

Kind of depends on where you want to hunt if there are any tags left too. I can tell you that there are always gobs of shotgun tags left for Pope county, IL after the first drawing and there is a ton of Shawnee NF public ground down there.

I have experience with hunting Shawnee NF in Pope county. There is a ton of ground, alot of deer, and some nice bucks to boot. Pressure is fairly low during archery season and not terrible during shotgun. If you are willing to put in a little bit of a walk then you shouldn't have much trouble finding a place to yourself.

If you want a better crack at a monster buck look into Jim-Edgar Panther Creek, Ray Norbut, Siloam Springs, or Weinberg-King. All of these are in the IL "Golden Triangle" are of IL. Special regs apply for shotgun on these. There are also special archery regs for non-residents on some of these. Look at the ILDNR website.

Good luck,

Joe

Tag or no tag you can get over to the maintenance barn at Ferne Cliff (I think 5am) and they draw a certain # of guys who receive a site tag everymorning of firearms season. Lots of deer taken out of there, including some dandy bucks now and then.

Bob check your mail.