Deer Hunting at Silver Springs?
Might want to have a Plan B

Archery deer season ends January 15, 2012, but at Silver Springs State Park it pretty much ended in November.

Because I am currently unemployable and have time on my hands to kill, by 3 PM every day I’m buggy and wander the five minutes down the road to Silver Springs State Park for a walk. I also check in to see how the pheasant hunters have been doing and if there is anyone out deer hunting. I seem to do this at least every other day.

With the mild December weather we’ve had, the pheasant hunting has been pretty good. I noticed that practically every one on the list gets their limit of birds. There’s a sign on the bulletin board saying that this year has seen a record harvest of birds. You feel sorry for the occasional hunter on the list that records a zero for the day.

According to my only source at Silver Springs, Larry is his name, there are fewer hunters getting out. He said that there was only one day where they couldn’t let all the standby hunters go out. Getting out on standby here used to be pretty rare. The afternoon hunts seem to also always have open slots, but they don’t allow standby hunts in the afternoon for some reason.

Up until the day after Christmas, I can’t recall seeing more than a half dozen deer hunters on the list. 10 deer hunters are allowed out at a time. The day after Christmas the list was filled twice. Twenty hunters had got out and a few were still out in the woods for the sunset hunt.

The areas set aside for deer hunting at Silver Springs are pretty small. Most of the land is set aside for pheasant hunting and another big area doesn’t allow hunting of any kind. The day after Christmas was the first time I had noticed, stuck to the bulletin board, a deer harvest list. I forgot to write down the exact numbers, but for October about 5 deer were taken. For November I recall only 5 or 6 deer taken with the last one on the 24th.

For December, only one doe was taken and that was on the 18th. Considering the amount of pressure these small areas get, that didn’t surprise me. I also drive through Silver Springs on a regular basis on my way to other places. Along the road, through the areas where you can only bird hunt or not hunt at all, I regularly see deer. In the surrounding areas, I see deer out wandering around all the time. A friend that regularly explores the nearby Hoover Forest Preserve has been posting pictures of quite a few deer in the preserves, including a nice shot of a good sized buck. Of course, you can’t hunt in the preserves.

It’s impossible to tell where they are coming from, but someone has been getting deer in the area. So far this year, dumped on the edges of the hunter parking lots at Silver Springs, have been the remains of seven butchered deer. One deer, a doe, was never butchered. It had been gutted then dumped about 20 feet off one lot. Seems like such a shame to waste all that good meat.

For the remainder of the deer season, if I were a deer hunter, I would find someplace else to go. I have a feeling the chances of getting a deer at Silver Springs aren’t going to improve.

For the pheasant hunters, Silver Springs is one of the Public/Private Partnership Sites run by T. Miller. Hunting for birds will continue there till January 8th. Since the other Chicago area controlled pheasant hunting areas are shutting down, a quick check of the T. Miller site shows that there are no more permits available. Up until now, there were quite a few permits that could be had up until the last minute. If you really want to get out and don’t live that far, it might be worth going on standby.

You just never know.