A walk in the IL woods, a picture along.

[adeeden]

Well, today was my birthday and I skipped out of work early to go play in the woods so to speak. It was a combination of scouting and clearing my head type trip. You see I gave up the nasty cigarettes 4 days ago and have been a total mess (to myself and those around me) and I figured a little woods time couln't hurt and would surely help!

Anyway this place is a state natural area just a half mile from the house or so.



I parked in one of the designated areas and hiked a quarter mile or so down the road to an old railroad track that cuts through the property. The tracks and ties were removed years ago making it more like a nice lane, it makes a really nice quiet path to get back in aways. as I walked down it I noticed there was a little color to the leaves! falls getting closer!

[adeeden]

With the rain we had recently it didn't take long to start seeing some fresh tracks were the trails crossed the old railroad grade.



One trail really caught my eye and I followed it back a couple hundred yards to an old grown over feild that is used for a bedding area by a couple different groups of does.

[adeeden]

The Little vermillion River is up a bit from all the rain as well. While it is still not exceptionally deep it did still make it a little harder to cross than normal so I decided to head back to the railroad grade and cross at the trussel! Here is the river from the trussel.




After crossing the river I slipped up on a little ridge that has alot of oaks on it (white and red) to check out the acorn status. There were a few but it doesn't look to be a great mast year. This brushpile does make a great natural blind among the oaks though!

[Shakes.602]

GOOD JOB  Adeeden!!  Happy Birthday Too!! I will Agree that A walk in the Woods is  "GOOD FOR THE SOUL !!"    
  How does that Old Saying Go?
 When the Going Gets Tough, The Tough Go Stumpin'!!  

[adeeden]

All this rain this year sure has made some pretty fungus as well, this one really caught my eye! While I have no idea what type it is the red color was interesting in the least.



It was growing in another pockett of bigger oak tree's these seemed to have more acorns than the first spot I checked, I'll have to remeber this little grove!

[adeeden]

Ahhhhhhh proof that your never the first to "find a new spot" on public land around here! This looks like it has been here for along time though, I wonder who used to hunt it and if they were carrying a stickbow?



After fallowing a ridge back to the railrod tracks I found myself nearing the "primitive camping area"



I would almost bet no one has camped here since me and my boys did a couple years ago. Here's a picture of the old grown up campground. Of course it is about a mile from the road so the only way to acces it is to backpack in that's probably why it is rarely used.

[adeeden]

A few ridges over to check out another pocket of white oaks and where the woods is a little more open.



There are some acorns on them though!

[adeeden]

While looking for acorns under the oaks I also saw this laying there.



It was still working I gues the commercial was right. Timex takes a licking and keeps on ticking! I slipped it into my pack and noticed it was an hour off. It must have been lost in the fall after time changes!

[UCBerzerkeley]

that was great; thank you

[adeeden]

I decided to head back to the river and walk the bottoms for awhile, here's a picture as I dropped off the ridge into the bottoms.



The river bottoms here mean several things, deer sign, mosquitos, and stinging nettles or itch weed as we commonly call it. For those of you familar with it you can relate to the large patches in the bottoms this time of year. For those of you who haven't been exposed to it well consider yourself lucky!

Here's what it looks like up close!



I never could figure out how the deer could eat this stuff but they do!

[Killdeer]

Thanks for the walk. I have to get out sometime. I love the pics, especially of the chicken mushroom. Beautiful specimen!

Killdeer  

[adeeden]

In my nicotine deprived mind I thought I saw a giant cocoon, but upon closer examination it was only a wood duck nest box someone had set out!



A great bedding area in the bottoms, this one has produced several times for me early in the year.

[adeeden]

There were tons of the wildflowers blloming in the bottoms as well, in fact after all the flooding we had this spring I was suprised with the amount of growth going on in there!



The low spot in this next picture was created when this area was strip mined many years ago. The result is a deer magnet it seems every deer in the area walks through this low spot! It has alot of good memories, just last year I set a young boy up there for a morning hunt. He collected his very first buck that morning. a double main beamed 13 pointer! He was proud as heck he shot it with a compound but after hunting with me for awhile he is now proudly shooting a recurve!

[adeeden]

On my way out I noticed this nice osage tree, it looks like theres a couple bows in this one!



One last picture, like I mentioned earlier we had a very wet spring. These beans didn't get planted until June 29th and are still very green for this time of the year. In fact they may still have some green in them for the opener in a couple weeks. The deer really seem to like them when there still green.





Well, thats it folks I hope you enjoyed the IL scenery!

[MJB]

Cool pics and HAPPY BIRTHDAY

[BMN]

That's one nice osage tree! Cool pics.

[Kevin Bahr]

Dennis, where is Georgetown, IL?  
Simply by virtue of the fact that you frequent this site, and by some of your past posts including this one, it is obvious that you "get it".  You really should check out the UBI.  I think you would find you have new friends there.  Our banquet is in Springfield at the end of February in case you don't have anything going on that time of year.  
Good luck hunting this fall.

[yellow bow]

thanks for the pics,Happy Birthday!  

[adeeden]

Kevin,
     Georgetown is in east cental IL (Vermillion county) Just 8 miles south of where I-74 goes into Indiana.

[Northwoods]

Happy Birthday and thanks for the walk in the woods.  I grew up in that area (Charleston) and those pictures brought back some great memories of those carefree days of my youth spent in places very similar.  Looks like you had a great walk.

Ted