40+- Acres Alexander County IL Deer Waterfowl Hunting Horseshoe Lake 2376L

Excellent Waterfowl and Whitetail Hunting!

40 acres of fantastic deer and waterfowl hunting located in Southern Illinois near Horseshoe Lake.

Folks, I can sit here and tell you this is the best duck hunting and the best deer hunting out there and all that normal real estate mumble jumble. I am not going to do that; I’m going to point out the facts here. The 2018-19 duck season in Illinois was a bust for the most part, one of the worst we have had in decades in my opinion. The change in seasons has hurt us and I think there is no denying that. I believe sportsmen have seen that and let’s hope IDNR recognizes it also and we get things back in order.

This property is 40 acres, 30 acres of which is in the WRP program, and the balance is wooded and not in any type of program. The 30 acres of WRP has a pit and a blind on it. The pit is a 5-man tank with concrete floor and an outside underground compartment capable of housing a 100-gallon propane bottle or a small generator in case you need to run an ice eater. The blind is nice sized and 6 guys can easily shoot out of it. The flooded area is 12 acres of water with 7 to 8 acres of corn planted in it. The property is also improved with a 17” well and the current owner rents a centrifugal pump to flood the area. The cost is roughly $1,000 a year and takes about 3 days to pump full. A local farmer has kept the levees mowed and has planted the crops for the owners. The property butts up to the south end of Horseshoe Lake Conservation Area and is under a mile from the lake itself. The owner of the property has been a long time, actual lifelong waterfowl enthusiast, (I hunted with him clear back in the late 70’s myself) and this is his personal duck hole. When the ducks are here, especially from Christmas on, they smash em. When the ducks are not here, it’s hard to kill em and I’d love to spin it as a magical place but that’s just the nature of the beast and we duck hunters understand that.

So, that brings us to the next part of the story. Although this area is traditionally famous for waterfowl, one of the hidden gems here is the whitetail deer hunting…numbers and quality!  The state land is managed as a waterfowl refuge; once duck season starts, all access is over to the refuge except in a few small areas of public hunting. Deer season is essentially over and the pressure on the deer is very light compared to much of Illinois. This farm adjoins around 1,000 acres of timber and sloughs that come duck season becomes a refugee for the deer. I spoke to several guys who know their deer and good bucks are quite abundant as is the entire deer herd. If you’re a southern United States deer hunter wanting to come to Illinois, you should look at this farm! The golden triangle is 3 to 4 hours driving time further so on a trip here and back you can pick up an extra 7 or 8 hours on stand rather than driving to West Central Illinois and you're giving up very little these days in quality, if at all. This area is a checker board of WRP land and crop land, many are clubs for waterfowl hunting so the habitat is awesome and the food abundant and thus the quality deer hunting is sustainable, if not improving.

Access is a recorded 25-foot easement to the property, and the owner reports having great like-minded neighbors make the entire are better for all. Come take a peek; there are not many quality hunting 40’s for both waterfowl and whitetail but here is one of them!