Deer hunting in Illinois

[heinch]

I have an opportunity to bowhunt in either Pope County or Pike County in Illinois. Any feedback on comparisons of the two areas would be greatly appreciated to assist in my decision.

I've never been there but I'm headed there this fall. Using Golden Triangle Whitetails. They have 18000 acres in Pike Adams and one other co but can't remember which one. Personally I think that whole area of Il Mo Ky have the potential for lots of big deer. Are you using an outfitter or hunting public land? is there any public land in Il? Any way I'll hopefully have first hand knowledge of someone taking a 200" in Il this nov. Ok two being taken there. happy wmi?

[joel the signman]

i've never been either but i was speaking to a guy who went over the weekend and i said oh golden triangle .he said they stink dont go try anybody else.dont remember why but he was very unhappy with them

I hope you're wrong or he's wrong. I liked the way they did things compared to the other outfitters I talked to. I talked to a couple of guys that hunted there and one of the guides. I saw some mounts that came from there. the things I liked; The guides never get to hunt the properties, no trophy fees, they don't do any hunting till the last weekend of Oct, and they had taken some big deer. I also liked the fines for shooting the wrong deer. they were serious about shooting just the big ones. I talked to the owner, who has done a couple hunting shows with big name tv hunters, and he said he knew of 4 200" deer that were running the properties but they are hard to see let alone get. Those are just the ones he knows about. they did take one that was 200" with a shotgun last season. I'm looking forward to it and hope to have some good pics of my hall hanger. I say with fingers crossed.

[timberghost]

Hello heinch and welcome aboard, we're glad to have you. I don't know anything about the Illinois deer pop. but everytime I turn on the Outdoor or Hunt channels all I see is Illinois monster buck prancing around the screen. I think that you'll do fine in either county, good luck with your decision.

[timberghost]

Ronn, in Nov. 17th, 2007 at 10:54am a fella named "crabclaw" made a post in the Lodge that totally annihilated the Golden Triangle outfit, I mean tore it up. The only way that I can think of getting to his post for a look is to go to the "members" option atop the screen and go to the letter "c" and find crabclaw then view all posts by him. That was the only post made by him on this site. Sorry if I put a damper on your plans but I thought you should know from a members personal exp with that outfit.-------- Or you could go to the search option atop and type Golden Triangle search all posts and forums and that should zip you right to it.

Thanks for letting me know about the post. Like I said I talked to a couple guys that hunted there and saw their mounts. The owner called this spring basically to make sure I did some shooting before I got there. He, the owner, had a rough season with the "hunters" they had in. One guy shot the little buck 110" that was with the big 160". another guy missed a big buck at 10 yards. That was during shotgun. They didn't recover almost 20 deer due to poor shooting from the "hunters". I'm sure it's a good placed based on the people I asked about it. Anyway thinks for the word.

[joel the signman]

crab claw
Scrub Buck Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 1

Golden Triangle, IL

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I just returned from a bow hunting trip to IL, at Golden Triangle. I do NOT recommend Golden Triangle. There were too many hunters (30 +/-). The land they put us on was garbage and the stands were 40-50 yards of the trails. It took 4 days of begging for them to move us, on the last day. Once Golden Trianlge had our money, they didn't care what happened during our hunt!

For bow hunters like my cus and I, a guided trip like this one was a once in a life time trip, and Golden Trianlge turned our dream trip into a nightmare!

Don't ever go to Golden Trianlge!

[joel the signman]

I hope it works out ronn .i myself wanted to go there .so you can give us yout report

Me too. Thanks for the input guys. I read what crab claw had to say. 30 guys on 18000 acres isn't very many. Had I heard it more than a year ago i might have rethought the hunt. I asked a pretty well known hunting personality about the place and he thought it, and Mike Pavlick the owner, was a good place but that we were going a couple weeks to early. i told him we were the first hunters on the property and he thought, like me, that will kinda make up for being early. 5 1/2 days of bow hunting 200" deer. I'll be very happy with a 170".