Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting IL rifle opener 2023

All staged up and ready to roll for opening morning here, anyone else hitting it tomorrow?

Local forecast is rain through about 10am, so morning is likely to be a bit miserable, but the rest of 1st season looks pretty good in terms of weather.

Good luck, be safe and enjoy!

Good luck to you all in Illinois. Ours open gun starts Saturday. We are ready and so are the deer running all day now. All corn and beans are out so hitting the food plots.

Fields are all out around here too, so I've been seeing them on the move a lot more the last couple weeks.

My hunting partner hits both states. He's gonna sit IL tomorrow and then IN Saturday.


Thanks. I'm looking forward to not getting the crap kicked out of me by a slug gun if I get a shot.

Shoot straight happy hunting

Just came home for lunch... heard about 30 shots, just about all between 615-8. Most were pretty far off, but a handful were really close on neighboring properties. Saw a ton of squirrels, some chipmunks, a couple raccoons, and a possum, but zero deer. I did see 5 driving home, of course 🙄

It's fortunate that you have property to hunt in IL. It's unobtanium where I live.....

Good luck!!!

It's not mine. I've lost access to a bunch of different properties I used to hunt because they changed hands. This is the only spot I've got this season, and it's doubtful I'll be on it next year. The spot I'd done most of my hunting on the past 10 got sold back in June.

It's getting really hard to find places to go around here unless you have a LOT of money to throw around, which I do not.

Neither do I. I've given up hunting in IL for this reason. If I can't draw a tag out west I don't hunt.


Hope you get one...

Potted a dinker about quarter after 3. 300 Blackout about 25 yards on a trot.. went about 10 yards and keeled over.



I just had one ES tag, so I'm done till ML weekend.

Well done!! That'll eat better than tag soup!

I've already eaten most of it 🤣 Gave some to my Dad, since he can't hunt anymore.

Kind of a chewy little bugger for how small it was. I've never had one that small be real tough like that before. I ended up basically shredding up the last roast into stew meat.

Deer, IMO, are best used as burger.

Bigger ones I grind everything except the backstraps and loins. Smaller ones like that I cut a few roasts. It tasted fine, it was just tough as jerky. 🤷‍♂️

Numbers for 1st season were way up in my county, DNR just released the first season stats yesterday.

Makes sense... I heard more shooting opening day than I have in the last 3 or 4 entire seasons combined.

Fuggin link keeps trying to post as a broken YouTube video. It's in the DNR press releases.

I felt like a weirdo out there this year with a 350 legend in a single shot bolt action for our inaugural “rifle” season. However, I shot one of my best bucks to date on the second day of 1st season. Overall, our group did pretty bad this year. That warm weather and [bleep] wind directions were really working against us.

I took 4 shots during the 2nd IL gun season, Knight M-L. The 1st was a coyote, 30 yards or so. The 2nd two were anterless, 60-70 yards or so.

The last was a nice 10 pointer, about 20 yards as it came through a creek then walked up a hill right towards me. The slight breeze was perfect, in my favor. I saw his rack 1st, had the gun up, safety off as he came into view.

With the new gun laws I thought about switching to my 444 Marlin or 45-70, but I’ll probably just stick with the M-L, it’s a laser with good knock down power.

As a side note, one in our group shot at a midlin 8 pointer with his 20 ga slug gun, he was sure he missed? Then he described the reactions that seemed to indicate a miss, I wasn’t near. After we left, the next day, another guy found a deer mostly eaten by the coyotes, not sure but likely wounded by this other hunter.

Anyway, other than that, went well. The other guy shot a coyote, 2 others passed at a few well in range. I normally can’t help but take the chip shot on a coyote. There seemed to be plenty around.

We had a terrible first season, going 0 for 4. Second season turned out better with 3 of us tagging a deer. The 350 Legend and 450 Bushmaster both turned in one shot kills.

I felt pretty dang good sitting with the Blackout. I hate shooting slug guns. Got a bad neck, so the recoil just murders me, even shooting a 20.

Already started putting some feelers out to try to find somewhere to hunt next year, because as it stands right now I have zero properties lined up.



This was the first season in years I hadn't seen any coyotes, but I was only out opening day. I ended up getting fairly sick right before ML weekend, so I skipped out on it.



Glad to hear you turned it around second season 👍 I only know a few people who hunt around here anymore and they all tagged up during 1st, so I'm not sure how second season went locally.