John Sondag's Mason County monster had a final score of 185 0/8 typical inches. Photo by Ron Willmore

John Sondag from Manito began his fourth year of bowhunting with great expectations. During the previous three years and again in 2004, Sondag had focused all of his deer hunting on public ground in west-central Illinois. Although Mason County is not typically known for giant bucks, in reality there is no shortage of deer, and an occasional record-book buck is killed. In 2003, for example, a Mason County buck arrowed by Dave Jones proved to be the new No. 1 bow-killed non-typical for Illinois at 266 4/8 inches.

The only place Sondag has to hunt is on public land. He will, however, be the first to admit there are frequent problems associated with too many bowhunters in a given area. Sondag was off work during the week of Nov. 8, 2004. He had decided to spend as much time as possible in one of the public areas he likes to hunt, such as Sand Ridge State Forest. This particular area is located in a floodplain with sandy soil and planted pines interspersed with hardwoods. The state forest is approximately 6,500 acres, most of which Sondag had either hunted squirrels or deer on during the previous three years.

Sondag had killed 18 does and a couple of decent bucks in the last three years. In 2004, however, he had his sights set on taking a Pope and Young buck. While scouting a certain area, he had found several large scrapes and rubs, and decided to focus his attention on that area.

At the beginning of the week he went into the area and set up his stand. The first morning he hunted the area, only does and small bucks showed up as they moved through on toward their bedding area. Sondag left in the middle of the day for a couple of hours, and when he returned, someone had stolen his tree stand. Needless to say, this put a damper on both his afternoon hunting plans and his attitude toward "hunters" who would take someone else's property.

After reflecting on what had happened, Sondag decided he was not going to let the actions of a low-life thief dictate his attitude or his experience in the woods. He simply procured a new tree stand and was determined to make the most of his remaining week of hunting. Mental attitude is definitely 95 percent of any hunt. Sondag decided at that point he would have a great time hunting that week, even though circumstances were not exactly as planned. On a side note, apparently there were several tree stands stolen last year at the state forest. As a result of that, after Sondag reported his stand stolen, site superintendent Billy Lowe started requiring all bowhunters to remove their stands after each day's hunt.

A couple of days later as Sondag approached the area he had found earlier, he noticed that something was out of place. In the area where he had hunted earlier, with several rubs and scrapes, there was now a bowhunter set up on one side only 30 yards away from his tree, and a ground blind on the other side littered with cigarette butts. The area around the ground blind was suddenly void of any vegetation, with several small trees cut down. Sondag talked to the other bowhunter briefly, said, "enjoy your hunt" and left with no idea where to go next.