DukMan wrote:SpinnerMan wrote:The upside is I hunt a club...
I've always wondered what it was like to hunt a club... is it worth the money? I've never seen the appeal, nor the need in our neck of the woods...
I live in the suburbs. Access is really a pain, especially given the Illinois laws on navigable waters, which is clearly not legal per federal law, but it's Illinois. The law is how those in power get what they want. They redrew our duck zones because some rich people wanted to move from the central to the north zone. Screwed the serious river hunters in the area by taking their best week.
You either have to know people (not an option unless you grew up here), spend a ton of time knocking on doors and/or a lot of other hassles, hope to draw a blind or deal with daily draws, or join a club. Around here, for people like me, moved here in 2002, it's hands down the best way.
I really didn't have a lot of choice if I wanted to hunt without a lot of hassles or having to drive a long ways on the weekends. It turned out way better than I could have expected. Now I'm in two clubs. My main club and then my late season club, which I joined two years ago, which is where I am now getting into field hunting ducks. I've hunted late season geese in that area for awhile with people I got to know at the first club, which is one benefit of a club.
The main club I joined about 12 years ago. It's 5 minutes from my house. I have a job that allows me to hunt before work. I can hunt every day as long as my job doesn't take me out of town, which unfortunately it does a fair amount. I also can archery hunt there. It's not great for either, but the convenience is great. Plus I got to know other guys which has lead to other things. We have a couple grass fields for geese and 18 water blinds.
If it is windy I hunt ducks, if it is calm I hunt deer, and if it rains I catch up on my sleep. That's what I do every day from the start of duck season until we get froze out. I hunt early goose and used to hunt late geese.
The club by my house. I can leave my boat. If I have a blind I like, I can leave all my decoys out. If I don't, I can jump unclaimed blinds. At this point, I know almost everybody at the club. I'm actually on the board now. Lots of convenience and lots of benefits from getting to know a lot of other hunters. And the rest of the year I can fish, train my dog when I had one, there is camping, picnic areas, etc. The lakes are maintained well for fishing. There is an archery range. And the cost is not that much. You own a share and can sell it. They are currently going for about $3k. Annual dues are $250 and you have to work one day. I probably hunt 20 days more a year than I would otherwise. Best thing I've ever done as far as hunting.
Once that club gets froze out, they are done for ducks. Nothing holds a lot of ducks, so breaking ice is normally a wasted effort. Goose hunting can be OK to very good. The season ends early January. My blind partner and his brother have a field in the central zone near Braidwood. I got hooked up with them and that's where I hunted until the end of January. Braidwood was written about in DU a few years ago. It is a goose hunting mecca in the late season. The lake can hold 100,000 Canadas and 10's of thousands of ducks when things are froze out to the north, especially when there is plenty of snow. As a result it's pretty tough to get access. A couple bad winters, too warm, and they just stopped. I all but begged and offered to literally do everything but talk to the farmer. No go. So I had to find another spot, which got me into the second club.
This club has 11 pits, and maybe half dozen fields for layouts. Each pit has 70 bigfoots and a couple dozen shells, a heater with propane. It's $300 initiation and $650 per year with one work day. It can get crowded when hunting is very good, but everybody shoots out on geese so some guys don't even go out and just jump in the hot blind. The club kills a lot of geese when we have cold snowy winters. If that hits before the end of duck season, they kill a lot of ducks too.
These are hunter clubs. Just guys that set them up so they could hunt without a lot of hassle. If I wasn't in Chicagoland, I would have never dreamed of joining a club. I grew up where I often simply grabbed my shotgun and me and the dog walked a couple blocks to the edge of town and started hunting. There was no issue with access and there were not 10,000,000 people living withing a 20 mile radius. There were probably not 100,000 people within a 20 mile radius. Although half of them seemed to deer hunt. Now however, I would look into it even if access was not a problem because there are a lot of benefits that come with having a big group of hunters.