Reflections on the Illinois Hunting Tradition

It started with simply throwing his first-ever Illinois hunting license into a file and adding to it each year. Not until after his marriage to Kathy in 1963 did Ed Kral decide to organize the licenses and start an official collection.

A retired 76-year-old high school educator, athletic director, principal and administrator, Kral purchased his first hunting license in 1952 at the age of 11 so he could rabbit and pheasant hunt with his father on farms in the Wheaton area. For the two previous hunting seasons Kral accompanied his father on hunts—a tradition they continued into the elder Kral’s 70s—but was not allowed to carry a gun until he turned 11.

“I vividly recall my first hunt, walking through the field with my single shot 410 open and holding shells in my hand,” Kral said with a lighthearted chuckle. “Once we flushed a rabbit I would load a shell, pull back the hammer and without fail pull the gun up to find the rabbit long gone.”

Like many youth, Kral’s first hunting experiences were small game, and he continues to hunt pheasants.

“If memory serves, I wasn’t required to purchase a license until age 16, but my father said that this was my first license and the right thing to do,” Kral explained. “Purchasing a license is a tradition that has now run 66 years, minus two years in high school when the swim coach wouldn’t allow us extracurricular activities that might jeopardize our ability to compete.”

Over the years, he’s also added dove, turkey and white-tailed deer to his game bag, and he fondly recalls hunting geese during the era when southern Illinois was considered the “Goose Capital of the World.”

Kral’s belief in supporting the license system continued throughout his life as he has purchased hunting stamps each year after their introduction, regardless of his hunting plans. After being a licensed hunter for 26 years, Kral took the Illinois Hunter Safety Education class with his son as, once again, it was the right thing to do.

Flipping through his binder Kral marveled at the evolution of the hunting license, with his 1952 license costing $2 and paying $34.50 for his 2016 license. Grinning, he noted that the price of his 2017 license dropped to nearly the price he paid as an 11-year-old, as at age 75 he qualified for the $3.75 Super Senior license.

Kral’s collection also brings back memories of the hunts and his hunting buddies, and his four-legged hunting companions. Prominently displayed with a framed collection of Illinois license stamp artwork is a photograph of Chip, the chocolate lab (aka Chocolate Chip) that amazed Kral during a waterfowl hunt when she diversified her talents and instinctively went on point on a pheasant, starting her career as a dual hunting dog.

Today’s hunting companion is Brandy, a lively 12 ½ year old Brittany Spaniel whose official hunting log documents more than 500 harvested pheasants.

“All of Brandy’s pheasants have been taken during hunts at pheasant clubs and unfortunately she’s not retrieved a single wild bird,” Kral said. “Driving north from the University of Illinois during the winter months of my college years (1959-1963) I would see 8 to 10 pheasants huddled under roadside trees. Sadly, the days of hunting wild pheasants in Illinois seems to have passed.”

Looking back over nearly seven decades of hunting, Kral sees the loss of habitat as one of the biggest changes he has witnessed, citing the evolution of his boyhood Wheaton-area hunting grounds into suburban deserts.

“I also have seen a change in participation,” Kral commented. “You used to see 40, 50 even 60 guys show up any day for a pheasant hunt at a controlled hunting area. Now I tend to go during the week and am likely to be one of maybe six hunters showing up.”

A passionate advocate for the American hunting tradition, Kral obviously delights in how each hunt continues to connect him to nature, and hunting companions present and past.

“My favorite hunting gun is a 410 Stevens Arms pump gun my father-in-law purchased at a hardware store in the late 1940s or early 1950s and used as his rabbit gun,” he remarked. “To this day it remains an accurate shot and a delight to carry afield.”

---

Kathy Andrews Wright is retired from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources where she was editor of Outdoor Illinois magazine. She is currently the editor of Outdoor Illinois Wildlife Journal and Illinois Audubon magazine.