The Real Story about Southern Illinois Waterfowl Hunting Try as they might, none of the clubs can restore southern Illinois goose hunting to what it once was, but they do their best to offer hunters the chance to take home a few of the big birds. Who knows? Given the right weather events, a few weeks of shooting geese each season here can be reminiscent of "the old days."

The real story today in southern Illinois waterfowl hunting is ducks! Lots and lots of ducks!

Faced with the decision to change their game plans or go out of business, many hunting clubs in southern Illinois revved up the bulldozers and pushed up low levees in the center of their corn and wheat fields. When the crops ripened, water was pumped in to flood the corn to a height just below the cobs. Guess what? Here came the ducks! The clubs dug new shooting pits into the levees, and duck decoys replaced the former goose floaters. However, the fact that thousands of geese still moved through the area made it worthwhile to maintain a number of fields and ponds replete with Canada, snow/blue and white-fronted goose decoys. Most of the clubs I visited were set up to attract both ducks and geese.

When choosing to hunt club lands, hunters should determine ahead of time whether the operations specialize in ducks, geese or both. Actually, the lay of the land at each of the three major refuges pretty much dictates what waterfowl species dominate the local skies.

Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge
At the north end of the SIQZ, waterfowl hunting centers on Crab Orchard NWR, which features sprawling Crab Orchard Lake within the refuge's 44,000 acres. The lake annually holds large concentrations of mallards and various other species of ducks, and 5,000 to 10,000 Canada geese still overwinter. In fact, the clubs near Crab Orchard NWR annually bag the most Canada geese in the SIQZ.

But the land around Crab Orchard is hilly, and the fields are small, surrounded by patches and parcels of heavy woodlands. Snow and blue geese, which travel in flocks of thousands, do not like this type of terrain. As a rule, hunting around Crab Orchard refuge produces good duck shooting, along with the possibility for taking some bonus Canada geese.

Call the Crab Orchard NWR manager at (618) 997-3344 to request hunting information.

Union County State Fish & Wildlife Area Twenty miles south of Crab Orchard refuge, Union County FWA, operated by the IDNR, covers three miles of Mississippi River bottoms. Its fields are large, flat and open. Snow geese love this type of habitat, and there are usually 15,000 to 50,000 of these noisy critters in the refuge. Because Canada geese don't get along with the snows, hunters find only a few small flocks of Canadas at Union County FWA. On the other hand, specklebellies don't seem to mind hanging out with the light geese, and there are plenty of them to hold your interest.

Little Grassy Lake, in the Union County refuge, holds perfect duck habitat. The absence of Canada geese has opened up space for an impressive array of ducks. At times, more than 100,000 mallards, gadwalls, wood ducks, teal and other quackers are on hand. Hunting for all of them seems to improve each season.

An example of what exasperated hunters walked away from when the Canada geese changed their migratory patterns, Grassy Lake Hunting Club in 2006-07 reported taking more than 4,000 ducks and only 500 geese. That impressive total was rung up during a 60-day duck season and a 56-day goose season.

Advance permits are required at Union County FWA (online at http://dnr.state.il.us), but standby hunters are allowed to draw for unclaimed blinds each morning.