Jeff Lampe

Jeff Lampe has been outdoor writer at the Journal Star in Peoria for 12 duck seasons. He lives in Elmwood with his wife Monica, sons Henry, Victor and Walter, and Llewellin setter Hawkeye. A native of Buffalo, N.Y., he is an avid fan of the Bills and still has mental scars from four consecutive Super Bowl losses. Outside of hunting and fishing, Lampe's main passion in Illinois was Class A boys basketball (which sadly no longer exists). Former publisher of the Class A Weekly newsletter, Lampe is a co-author of "100 Years of Madness" and "Classical Madness," both books focusing on prep basketball in Illinois.

Scattershooting

A Web log by Jeff Lampe of the Journal Star

Fourth waterfowl zone for Illinois?

January 12, 2010 at 06:29 PM

Chicago Sun-Times writer Dale Bowman is reporting on his Web log Stray Casts that there are rumors of a push being made for a fourth waterfowl zone in Illinois.

Writes Bowman:

We hear the IDNR honchos aren’t hot for it, but big shooters with connections are pushing a fourth waterfowl zone in far southern Illinois.

The public hunting areas on Rend and Carlyle lakes, which tend to freeze earlier than private clubs (like the scene on Rend above four years ago), would remain in the third zone.

The added zone would allow later season dates in far southern areas, but allow earlier dates at Rend and Carlyle.

A fourth zone would surprise me, since I’ve always heard the federal government folks were against it. Maybe I was wrong.

This is something I will be trying to track down this week.

While a fourth zone would allow for a a split in the South Zone, there’s a simple fact to remember here: Even 50 zones would probably not be enough to make all waterfowlers happy.

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i grew up in so illoinois moved to missouri in 1976
and i can say that so il. still gets screwed on all DNR wether fishing or hunting. pressure is too hard from dakota’s minnesota to cairo. birds pretty smart and we keep ucating them.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/12 at 08:22 PM

Illinois does not need a 4th waterfowl zone. Just expand the central zone south to include Rend Lake and/or Caryle Lake. The Feds would not have any opposition to this. I think I64 would be a good divider but I’m sure those who hunt Rend would not like it.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/13 at 07:11 AM

Sounds great expand central zone it just about encompasses the whole state now anyway might as well make it bigger.If they want to do anything then lets make the current lines a little more strait. for instance route 17 in Aledo is the divide line on the western part of the state. But when you go east the line goes way to far north. So all the big money clubs around Braidwood are in the central Zone. It doesnt much matter now but if they bring back the quota on geese we central zone hunters get the shaft again just like 4 years ago when the boys around braidwood closed us out on like dec.22 And us hunters down state hadnt even gotten into any good goose hunts.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 01/13 at 01:29 PM

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