Wet, soggy ground postponed last Saturday’s plans to build a new wattle fence along a the new Prairie Creek Woods Trail at Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie.
But organizers will be aiming to finish the job on Saturday, Jan. 3, and hoping for drier weather.
Volunteers are being asked to gather at 11 a.m. at the River Road Seed Beds.
River Road is one of the access points for the Prairie Creek Woods trail according to Midewin spokesperson Marta Witt.
“The wattle fence is one of the oldest forms of fence,” she explained. The wood weave pattern was used by early pioneers and has recently regained popularity as a fence for garden plots.
At Midewin, Osage orange posts and honeysuckle limbs are being used to build the fence row. The raw materials come from trees and shrubby that have been removed from Midewin’s open spaces to open up more grassland habitat for birds.
Two years ago volunteer logged 118 hours in building their first wattle fence near the seed bed plots.
For more information, call (815) 423-6370.
Reservations for state park campsites and shelters will begin by mail on Jan. 2 and by phone on Feb. 1, 2009.
There’s a $5 reservation fee. Campsites can be reserved for a maximum of 14 nights per 30-day period and reservations have to be made seven days in advance.
Shelter reservation fees are $25 at most sites.
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Wildlife managers are making their annual appeal to avoid feeding deer during the winter in order to help prevent the spread of a deadly deer disease.
A ban on feeding wild deer was enacted in 2002 as part of the state’s continuing effort to limit the spread of chronic wasting disease in the wild deer herd.
The ban includes food, salt, mineral blocks and other food products, with some exceptions. For example, bird and squirrel feeders close to homes and incidental feeding of wildlife within active livestock operations are exempt from the ban.
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Bowhunters with their longer deer season are not surprisingly seeing the best results this hunting season.
“This year’s harvest stands at 57,565, slightly ahead of 2006 (57,273) and 2007 (55,743) totals, and slightly behind 2005’s record setting pace o 58,908 deer,” said Paul Shelton, the state’s forest wildlife manager.
Locally the bow season through Dec. 10 is showing mixed results. Ford and Iroquois hunters are riding a four-year high with harvest total of 65 and 398 deer respectively.
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Brett Duby, 11, of Papineau, downed this 10-point deer during the first shotgun season. Duby had no luck all day working a ground blind and had just started walking out when the 175-pound buck came into range. He took his first deer at the same spot that his grandpa Don Duby tagged a 16-point buck two years ago.
~ submitted photo
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There’s still life left in the Illinois’ deer seasons, but results from the recently completed shotgun hunt show its getting tougher to bag a prize this year.
Hunters saw numbers drop by 11,113 deer during the firearm season that ended Sunday.
Bowmen are continuing their long hunt through Jan. 15. A special three-day muzzleload-only firearm hunt begins Friday. Also on deck for Jan. 16 to 18 in the late winter firearm antlerless-only hunt that includes Grundy County and a special hunt to control the spread of chronic wasting disease in several northern Illinois counties.
The firearm deer season resumes Thursday and continues through Sunday in those counties that allow firearm hunting.
Hot of the heels of the traditional shotgun season come the muzzleloader-only, late winter and a special deer season to monitor chronic wasting disease.
The muzzleloader-only hunt runs Dec. 12-14. The late winter antlerless-only deer season for designated northern counties is Jan. 16 to 18, the same date as the CWD deer hunt in Boone, DeKalb, McHenry, and Winnebago counties and Kane County west of Illinois Route 47.
One Shelby County hunter died during the first shotgun season, on Nov. 21-23, after falling for a tree stand. Three other hunters were injured in tree stand accidents in what is seen as a relatively safe first season. No firearms related injuries or fatalities were reported according to the Department of Natural Resources.
“Hunters need to be vigilant about firearm safety at all times, especially when transporting their firearms, moving them into and out of tree stands, and whenever they are in the field,” said Jeff Hopkins, administrator of Safety Education for IDNR.
During the first firearm weekend, hunters harvested a preliminary total of 71,894 deer according to revised figures from Springfield..
All Jeff could do was stare and wait as the massive 10-point buck came walking right into shotgun range.
“I’ve been bow hunting these woods on a regular basis and I have never seen that deer before,” Eubanks said of the 275-pound buck he took Nov. 22, the second day of the shotgun season.
The rural Bourbonnais hunter was working a tree stand in a wooded area near Grant Park when the strange buck came in with its nose to the ground. “It must have wandered in here from somewhere else,” Eubanks said.
“I’ve been hunting deer for 25 years and that was the biggest one I’ve ever taken.” The trophy filled his firearm permit, leaving Eubanks with some tags still to fill during the remaining bow season.
That same day, across Kankakee County, Jasper Reilly, 11, of Limestone downed another 10-pointer — his first deer — while hunting a wooded area with his dad, Adam.
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