Joel Gomez, of Blue Island, knows the excitement of “buck fever.” He’s also among a growing number of hunters who have experienced the sensation within Chicago’s city limits. Late on a Saturday afternoon in the waning days of October, Gomez sat 15 feet off the ground in a deer stand at the center of a 30-acre wooded area newly designated for deer hunting during the 2024/25 season at William W. Powers State Recreation Area on Chicago’s Southeast Side. Considered state-owned land within Chicago city limits, the recreation area first allowed bow and crossbow hunting of deer for the 2022/2023 season on a 23-acre peninsula that juts into Wolf Lake’s southern edge, bordering 133rd street to the south. Along with the new area where Gomez hunted, the increase doubled the number of bow/crossbow deer hunting permits issued for the recreation area, from 8 to 16. As Gomez waited patiently for a deer, ambulances blared by on Avenue O, setting off howling among unseen coyotes. He recorded them on his phone. Gomez said he also heard what sounded like a tractor pulling families, hayride-style, likely at a Harvest Festival going on several blocks to the south at the visitors’ center. The event was intended to attract families with food, games and music. “With all that noise, I didn’t think I was going to get anything,” Gomez said. “That Saturday, I stood in the stand for four hours in the midpoint of the woods.” Around 6 p.m. just as the sun set, Gomez found himself staring down from the forest canopy at a mature buck within striking distance of his Killer Instinct crossbow. “When I saw the deer, I started shaking,” Gomez said. “I got so excited. I got buck fever. It’s a real thing. After I got the buck, it was like I was in shock.” Joel Gomez, of Blue Island, poses in October with a mature buck he shot using a crossbow at William W. Powers State Recreation Area in Chicago’s Hegewisch neighborhood, one of the few places within Chicago city limits where hunting is allowed. (Joel Gomez) Gomez was the first hunter to get a deer in the new northwest woods deer hunting area, but not the only one this season. After Gomez, a member of the Southeast Sportsmen’s Club in Hegewisch, also took down a buck there, said Dan Indicavitch, the club’s president. Several of the club’s 90 members have hunted deer and duck at William W. Powers, and they’re thrilled about the expansion, Indicavitch said. Deer hunting with firearms is prohibited in Cook County. But regardless of the weapon, hunting helps keep deer populations healthy, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, due to a lack of natural predators in Illinois. The IDNR issues deer hunting permits lottery style to Illinois hunters who submit applications via email or mail by mid-August. In all, 40 hunters applied to hunt at William W. Powers for this season, which runs through Jan. 15. Many hailed from Chicago as well as nearby suburbs such as Stickney and Oak Lawn, but also from places further away, like Wheaton and Waconda, said Nicky Strahl, IDNR wildlife biologist for Cook and DuPage Counties. Like the recreation area’s northwest woods hunting area, William W. Powers’ southern peninsula is plenty wild and well populated with deer and coyotes. Ponds and inlets puncture the terrain, connecting it to Wolf Lake. Trees and brush had started to take over an old service road there in December 2022 when John Karas took down a doe with a crossbow. “It was a clean shot,” he said, “I know because the bolts went into the ground.” Not wanting to startle the wounded animal, he waited about 45 minutes before starting to track her. “I got about 75 yards from where I shot it and saw three coyotes staring at me,” Karas said. They ran. Karas walked on, tracking the blood trail. “Then I just saw a big pile of fur,” he said. “The coyotes took out the hind end and the internal organs and had eaten down to the ribs.” By then it was getting dark. Karas said a fire engine passed by on the way to the nearby trailer park. And just as Gomez recalled, he said the sirens set off the coyotes. “It sounded like 20 or 25 coyotes howling,” Karas said. “I had several encounters with them already. I figured it was best to just get out of there.” Kara’s freezer was full of venison from two previous hunts in Wisconsin. “I was looking at the doe more as cookout meat for the Southeast Sportsman’s Club,” said Karas, also a longtime member. Shortly after taking down the deer, Karas had phoned Strahl, who along with the state conservation police, makes herself available for hunters’ questions. She meets with hunters as a group when they come to the visitors center to pick up their permits, providing instruction on hunting safety and the importance of testing for chronic wasting disease, a fatal neurological disease akin to Mad Cow Disease which affects deer, elk and moose. Thanks to Strahl and other IDNR biologists, Illinois deer hunters learn the dangers of consuming meat from deer infected with CWD. “It’s not like you instantly die,” Strahl said. “That’s what makes the disease so difficult to track in deer.” Cooking will not prevent the spread to humans, Strahl said. “To eat without testing, the risk outweighs the reward.” During the IDNR’s 2023/2024 surveillance period, hunters harvested 160,313 deer across Illinois. Two CWD positives were confirmed in Cook County during fiscal year July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024. In northern Illinois, 308 cases were found, with just 23% of deer harvested in northern counties tested. CWD was first detected in Illinois in 2002. Hunting, using sharpshooters to cull deer populations, and tissue testing have helped slow the disease’s spread, according to the IDNR. But for safety’s sake, Strahl reminds hunters that Centers for Disease Control guidelines suggest testing all deer, elk or moose meat before eating. Standard practice in Illinois is for hunters or wildlife biologists to remove and freeze lymph nodes found in the neck and around the jawline and submit them for testing. These may contain abnormal proteins, called prions. Hunters can also deposit the entire head and first two vertebrae of an animal at IDNR drop stations. As a stop gap measure, IDNR also provides hunters with a list of vetted taxidermists who are qualified to take tissue samples. Gomez submitted nodes for testing, but to be on the safe side, he also took the head to a qualified taxidermist. He and his wife waited for the negative results before making venison jerky, tamales or a favorite Mexican stew called birria, Gomez said. Karas never did get a test sample from the doe back in 2022. “Nicky (Strahl) asked me to go back the next day and get the head (for testing),” Karas said. “I did go back, but all I found was one foot bone with fur on the end and I checked the ground maybe for a good 200-foot radius.” Karas is retired and lives less than a half mile from Wolf Lake. Ravenous coyotes aside, he said he still appreciated the chance to hunt close to home. “This was like my backyard growing up,” he said. “I swam and fished here as a kid. With all the deer I seen years before, I’d always think it’d be nice to come out here and hunt. And it happened for me.” Gomez, who works in South Holland, also said he appreciated the chance to hunt deer close to home during the two-week period allowed by his permit. “I could hunt almost every day after work,” he said. “This is a hunter’s dream.” Susan DeGrane is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.