Baby, it’s cold outside

Brrrr! It’s cold today. After 40 days of above temperature winter, we might be advised that real winter might be here. Thirty one days of December and 10 days of January saw no snowflakes fall in Princeton. I hope Mother Nature doesn’t try to even it out.

Statewide in Illinois finds most of the hunting and trapping seasons have come to an end. On Jan. 26, the Chicagoland Outdoor Sportsman’s Show will begin and run for four days. Our PHS Sportsman’s Club will try to attend that big show.

On Feb. 1, the light goose season opens in the central and southern season. The state is still trying to cut down the numbers of this species of waterfowl.

Jan. 21-22 and 28-29 is the Eagle Watch Weekends at Starved Rock State Park in Utica.

Locally, the big event for this weekend will be the NWTF (Turkey Federation) banquet to be held at the Met. There are still some tickets available. The doors open at 5:30 p.m. with the dinner to start at 7 p.m. Great food, great raffles, great auction. Come and support this fine organization.

Mark your calendars for March 8. This is the date set for the Pheasants Forever banquet at the Met. I have been informed that there will be a youth hunt for ringnecks later on this spring. This is a great opportunity for our youth to hunt live birds behind good gun dogs and experienced hunters.

Also upcoming will be the Whitetails Unlimited banquet. There will be more info for their banquet in the near future.

The PHS Sportsman’s Club will travel over to Spring Valley to practice archery indoors. A select group will use the indoor facility for practice and new archers will be instructed. Within the next two weeks, we will have a father-son shotgun cleaning night featuring the help of some shotgun experts. March will see the club travel to Peoria for the Deer-Turkey Classic on March 23-25.

Finally, there are a few openings for fishermen to go to Canada with our group the first week in June. If you want more info, call me at 815-872-5431 in the evenings.