Hunting near Brantingham

[boo711]

Anyone ever bow hunt any of the forest preserve land up around Brantingham?? My cousins wife booked a house on Brantingham Lake Columbus Day weekend. My cousin and I are going to bow hunt. Was looking at map around Partridgeville rd. Anyone framiliar with this area. Hoping to be able to get up there one day beforehand to scout

[Robhuntandfish]

Anyone ever bow hunt any of the forest preserve land up around Brantingham?? My cousins wife booked a house on Brantingham Lake Columbus Day weekend. My cousin and I are going to bow hunt. Was looking at map around Partridgeville rd. Anyone framiliar with this area. Hoping to be able to get up there one day beforehand to scout

Used to have a camp up on Chase lake and I try to do a still gun hunt up there every year. I've fished otter creek a lot! And the independence river. Lots of miles on those.

But the deer density up there is def few and far between. There are a few bear around.

I usually hunt the Independence river forest area. Lots of trails to take and back roads everywhere. Used to be more wild but now they have the otter creek horse trails there so a lot more people around.

If you go up the eatonville Rd, confusion flats Rd, there is a bunch of state land up there. Never saw many deer though. I go for old times sake once a year. Passed a three point a couple years ago over by pitcher pond .

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[Robhuntandfish]

There might be more people out there if that hits along the early muzzleloader week.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[SilentStalker]

On 8/5/2022 at 9:41 AM, boo711 said:

Anyone ever bow hunt any of the forest preserve land up around Brantingham?? My cousins wife booked a house on Brantingham Lake Columbus Day weekend. My cousin and I are going to bow hunt. Was looking at map around Partridgeville rd. Anyone framiliar with this area. Hoping to be able to get up there one day beforehand to scout

Rob covered it pretty darn well. I am in a club up off Partridgeville Rd. Like Rob said, few deer and that time of year is tough if the foliage is still hanging on, which it will be with the Beech... I have never bow hunted up there, but finding the food at that time has led me to a few ML kills in that early season. I would imagine you would have most of the woods to yourself (hunter-wise) as ML season starts the 15th I believe this year. We uually fish for a bit, hunt for a bit etc., on Otter and the Independence, especially on the warm days. Good luck!

[wolc123]

I used to go snowmobiling up to Brantingham  every year on Super Bowl weekend, 20-30 years ago.    At that time, there were some folks around the lake who would feed the deer corn, drawing in dozens each night.  It was post-hunting season, and if there were any buck’s, they were hornless.  
 

I never hunted real close to town, but we did go up one early ML weekend (maybe 22 years ago) and we hunted some state land on the west side of Rt 12, near the Timberview resort.  We saw lots of antlerless deer, but none with horns.  None of us was willing to part with our archery/ml tag, on an antlerless deer, but killing a doe would not have been much tougher that shooting a duck in a barrel.  

I like Brantingham a lot, and I hope to get back there some day.  My buddy’s still go up with their atv’s each summer, and they just got back from this year’s trip.  Global warming has just about killed the snowmobiling up there, but most of the trails are open year round for atv’s.   
 

The town has one of my favorite restaurants in the state (The Coachlight). It burned to the ground a few years ago, but they rebuilt better and bigger than it was.  Say hi to owners Bob and Shelly, if you go.  Ask Bob about his first job, driving the Sesame Street bus.  
 

I caught my biggest largemouth bass ever, thru the ice, on that lake.  I didn’t have a camera, but there was one witness to the catch: A young girl on ice skates, up on the ne corner.  We used to rent a big house up there.  Bass season was closed, so I had to force it back thru the ice hole.  I was after whitefish, which are no good fried, but are awesome when smoked with apple wood.  

I don’t think you would have to hunt too hard to fill your antlerless archery/ML tag up there.  Getting a buck will be a lot tougher.

 A part-time bartender at the Coachlight, who was a Ft. Drum soldier for his day job, killed a real big bear up there during the early September gun season.  That happened the same year that we went up for the October ML weekend.  We didn’t see any bears, but we did kill a snowshoe hare and a ruffed grouse, when we went out after small game one afternoon with our shotguns.  
 
  We hit the jackpot on the squares, at the Coachlight’s Super Bowl party 3 or 4 years in a row, including the year of the “wardrobe malfunction” involving Janet Jackson.