Mike Foulk walked along the edge of a harvested farm field southeast of Macomb just after sunrise on a hazy, damp, and chilly morning in early December.
It was firearm hunting season in Illinois, and Foulk hoped to spot a deer. He is one of a decreasing number of firearm deer hunters in Illinois.
“Duck hunting is my main passion, but we didn’t get a deer last year so I wanted to focus on trying to get a deer this year,” he said.
“You just have to remember, this is feeding you and your family when you’re doing it. It’s a cycle of life. It will last us a year or so. That part’s important. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper than having to go buy beef at the grocery store.”
Foulk lives in Macomb with his wife Stephanie and their two boys (full disclosure: Stephanie works at Tri States Public Radio). He’s been a hunter for around a dozen years.
Learning the sport of hunting
Foulk has been around guns his entire life.
“We weren’t told to be afraid of them. We were told to respect them,” he said.
“I think, unfortunately, a lot of parents, or adults and kids, they think everything’s scary about them, but they’re not. It’s just another tool. You just have to learn to respect it like any other tool. Take care of it. You realize it can be dangerous, but it’s still just a tool.”
However, Foulk was 31 before he started hunting. He said his father-in-law was a good teacher.
“Lucky enough I married into a family that hunted. I never hunted. We had firearms, we were raised with firearms, but we weren’t really hunters. I was always target practicing or paper shooting,” Foulk said.
One of Stephanie’s uncles owns the land Foulk hunts on. Mike estimated he’s taken down six or seven deer here in the past. He shot his first deer in 2011, the first year he hunted.
“Here comes this buck. He was a smaller buck. But he was my first deer and I shot him and he went immediately down,” he said.
“I was so excited. That’s kind of what got me hooked too. Plus doing everything. Your adrenaline’s pumping. It was just super exciting.”
There was not much adrenaline pumping on this particular morning. It was fairly quiet, though Foulk noticed he was not the only one out hunting. Through his binoculars, he spotted a coyote in the distance.
“Yep, there’s one over there. He’s just past the tree line. You see where this thing that kind of sticks up in the middle between these sets of trees here? He’s on the other side of it. A coyote. Just sitting there. He’s out hunting too,” Foulk said.
Fewer people are hunting in Illinois than in the past, though there is an effort to turn that around.
Illinois Learn to Hunt
Numbers from the 2022 season show the state had roughly 122,000 firearm deer hunters. A decade ago, that number was 163,000.
Dan Stephens hopes to help reverse that trend. He’s Program Manager for the Illinois Learn to Hunt program, which is a collaboration between the Illinois Natural History Survey and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
He said the program provides an educational pathway for people who are interested in hunting but don’t have someone in their immediate family to teach them or just don’t know how to get started.
Stephens believes hunting is beginning to appeal to millennials who want to provide food for themselves and their families.
“Kind of taking grasp of the ownership of that harvest and not just relying on buying chicken nuggets from the market, but being a part of that local food system,” Stephens said.
He also said hunting helps manage the state’s natural resources. He said every time someone buys a hunting license, firearm, ammo, or archery equipment, some of that money goes to conservation programs.
In addition, hunting helps manage populations to prevent disease outbreaks and limit conflicts between humans and wildlife.
Why are fewer people hunting?
Stephens believes the decline in hunting in the state can be attributed in part to Father Time – those who hunted for many years are aging and might be less likely to head out.
But a lot also comes down to access.
“When I first started hunting, I could go knock on somebody’s door and ask them, ‘Hey, can I go hunt your farm? I’ll take care of it. I won’t mess anything up. Can I go hunt?’ Largely, I would get ‘Yes.’ Nowadays, I normally have to knock on 30 or 40 doors before I can get somebody to give me permission,” Stephens said.
He pointed to liability concerns for farmers, plus the potential for them to make a lot of money by leasing out their land.
“It’s very hard to convince a landowner who could potentially lease out a property for $5,000 a year to just say, ‘Hey can I just go hunt it?’ and go out there for free,” Stephens said.
He said that’s crowding more hunters onto public lands to compete for the deer at those sites.
Stephens believes the term “trophy hunter” gets thrown around a little more than it should. Many people – including him – hunt for food.
“My wife and I made a decision about five or six years ago that we wanted to try to move away from factory farmed meat as much as reasonably we could,” he said.
“So we basically have not had to buy beef since then. We harvest two or three deer each year and that’s largely enough to cover us on the ‘beef’ side of things.”
The economic impact of hunting
A December 2021 report from the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundationsaid hunting boosts the nation’s overall economy.
It said recreational hunting and target shooting in the U.S. generated more than $65 billion in combined retail sales in 2020.
The report also said spending by hunters and shooters supported nearly 970,000 jobs and created more than $45 billion in wages and income.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation describes itself as a 501(c)3 organization that “protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits.”
Emptyhanded, but still a good day
Mike Foulk eventually left the blind and walked the field, trying to flush out any deer that might be hunkered down. But none were around.
Despite the lack of luck, he considered it a morning well spent.
“I would like a little bit more action, but that’s just part of hunting. Sometimes you see them, sometimes you don’t. But you’ve got to be out there to have a chance,” Foulk said, adding that hunting is a chance to get away from screens and get back to the basics.
“I think if more people got to go out in nature they’d have happier lives.”
And Mike remained optimistic.
“Yeah, there’s always tomorrow.”
So he packed up his gear in his white 1997 Jeep and headed down the gravel driveway, back onto the road and into town -- back into the world of screens and stores and away from the time he enjoys out in nature. Tomorrow would bring another opportunity to put food on his family’s table.
Tri States Public Radio produced this story. TSPR relies on financial support from our readers and listeners in order to provide coverage of the issues that matter to west central Illinois, southeast Iowa, and northeast Missouri. As someone who values the content created by TSPR's news department please consider making a financial contribution.
