It's almost time! Deer season is just around the corner. For many men and women, it's the only season. Sure, we all enjoy chasing bushy tails through an October woods, cottontails through the tangles and burrs and pheasants among the corn stubble, but none of those compare with "Buck Fever!"

  Buck fever usually sets in well before the season begins. Getting the gear ready, checking out new camos, even the act of purchasing the license and tags raises the excitement level. Why? Well, for most American hunters, whitetail is the only big game animal we'll ever hunt. For some, there's no meat that comes close to matching the flavor of a fresh venison steak. And for all hunters, there's no greater test of hunting skills than an alert, mature whitetail. Fred Bear, the Bear in Bear Archery, once said, "...for the whitetail is the smartest creature to walk this earth!"

  I feel that the secrets to a successful deer hunt are to remain undetected until you get your shot off. When you're talking whitetails, that's no mean feat.

  The whitetail deer, Virginius borealis, is equipped with what very well may be the best sensing devices in the natural world. They have excellent vision; huge ears that can hear a cotton ball hit the ground and a nose so keen it can detect the scent of a man more than a quarter mile away. This incredible sense of smell may be the whitetail's most effective means of detecting potential predators. Where the eyesight and hearing may be confused or fooled by harmless movement or sounds, the nose is never wrong.

  Many hunters lying motionless and thoroughly blended with their background have witnessed a would-be trophy suddenly snort and bolt away with blazing speed for no apparent reason. What probably happened was the wind either shifted or died down and the deer caught a whiff of gun oil or that sausage McMuffin breakfast.

  To get your trophy buck, you have to circumvent those incredible senses. If you choose to still-hunt instead of taking a tree stand, the problem is compounded. And that's where experience, planning, skill, knowledge and luck come in. You'll need a lot of luck.

  One of the luckiest things that can happen to a still hunter is to awaken to the sounds of howling wind and blowing rain. All of this works against the whitetail's senses. A patient hunter, dressed for conditions, walking into the wind may walk right up on a bedded or sheltered deer.

  So, nimrods, hope for wind, rain, sleet, snow. The worse the weather, the better a hunter's chances. But, hope it ends before you have to start the long drag back to the truck.

  SPRINGFIELD, IL – The Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) Division of Fisheries this week stocked 1,600 alligator gar (each 12 to 14 inches in length) into four waters in the state as part of an IDNR Alligator Gar Reintroduction Program.

  The alligator gar, which were raised from fry at the IDNR Jake Wolf Hatchery in Mason Co. and a cooperating private hatchery operated by Exelon Corporation, were stocked at:

  * Powerton Lake, a land-locked lake south of Pekin at Powerton Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area (Tazewell Co.);

  * Sanganois State Fish and Wildlife Area, a backwater of the Illinois River south of Beardstown (Cass Co.);

  * Horseshoe Lake at Horseshoe Lake State Park (Madison Co.), an old oxbow lake of the Mississippi River in the Metro East;

  * A backwater lake of the Lower Kaskaskia River near the Kaskaskia River Fish and Wildlife Area (St. Clair Co.)

  Prior to stocking, the fish received electronic tags that will allow biologists to track and monitor them.

  Alligator gar, a fish native to Illinois, are being reintroduced in an attempt to restore this very large predator to waters of Illinois where it once thrived. Prior to the start of the Illinois reintroduction program, the last known catch of alligator gar in Illinois was in the Cache River basin in southern Illinois in 1966.

  Alligator gar can grow up to 8 feet in length and weigh more than 300 pounds. If the project is successful, alligator gar will make for a very strong sportfish, and more importantly, they will add to the biodiversity of the ecosystems in which they are found.

  “Reestablishment of an extirpated species doesn’t happen very often, but we have an opportunity with the alligator gar, so we are going to take it,” said Dan Stephenson, chief of the IDNR Division of Fisheries. “We don’t know if we will be successful in bringing them back to a naturally reproducing species, but we are going to try. The stocking programs will continue for years to come, and we will monitor the populations over time to see if we are having success in establishing them once again in Illinois waters.”

  For those worried that alligator gar would be detrimental to popular sportfish species, biologists say the alligator gar is an opportunistic predator that mostly targets shad and non-game fish.

  “Contrary to some reports, the IDNR is not stocking alligator gar in an attempt to control Asian carp,” Stephenson noted. “They will have no effect on Asian carp, but they are a large, interesting, unique species that once swam in southern Illinois waters. We would like to see them there again.”

  To see a picture of the gar that were stocked, click here: https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/news/Documents/AlligatorGar1.jpg

  For more information about the great outdoor adventures waiting for you in Illinois visit their web site at https://www.dnr.illinois.gov/Pages/default.aspx .

  Here’s a tale about two companies that have different approaches to standing behind their products.

  Recently the heating/cooling unit better known as a heat pump we have to service our upstairs area at home quit working. The fan on the outside unit/condenser stopped working resulting in the upstairs getting really hot. Called the service guys and they arrived a couple of hours later to check it out. The problem was finally traced to the upstairs unit. The module board/electronic control board wasn’t sending power to the fan allowing it to come on. No power means no fan which equals no cooling. Okay let’s replace the board.

  Called Friedrich tech support, did I mention it is a Friedrich brand heat pump, known in the business as a 'Mini Split', for parts only to be told that they were no longer available. Not available?!? It’s only twelve years old! We were told the entire unit will have to be replaced. What a load of crap! For the lack of a $200 board (Probably more than that because they know they got you by the ass) we were told we were going have to spend $4000 - $5000 to remedy the situation. The mechanics of the system didn’t fail it was some tiny electrical component that probably costs 25 cents to make.

  I know of no one that replaces their heating and/or cooling system every dozen years. These things are supposed to be made to last many more years than that. The old furnace and A/C were working just fine when we had them replaced in 2004 and they were from the 1970’s! We just wanted to upgrade and get something more efficient to help lower the power bill.

  After a little decision between the tech and myself we came up with a way to make it work. The problem with our fix is since it’s a heat pump the fan is a variable speed motor and it may not heat properly when it gets cold. We’ll see how it goes when it gets cold out. If we have to eventually replace the unit it certainly won’t be a Friedrich!

  Now to a company that takes care of its customers.

  I purchased a Shop Vac brand vacuum for my shop last summer. Last winter I started having problems turning it on and off. You had to press the buttons real hard to almost tapping them down to make them work. A bit of an inconvenience but I made it work. A couple of months ago I was using it to clean up some paint I had scraped off the back garage door while getting it ready to paint when it wouldn’t turn off. I kept pushing the buttons to no avail when smoke suddenly billowed out of the switch area. Before I could get it unplugged it blew the circuit. No problem there but the switch was fried.

  A couple of weeks later I finally got around to taking it apart to see what had happened. It looked like a wire had come off the switch and shorted out. Contacted Shop Vac about how and where I could obtain a switch since they didn’t have it listed on their web site. A few days later I received an e-mail saying that instead of sending me a switch they were going to send me an entire new power head aka motor assembly free of charge. Free of charge? Wow! I never expected that. Less than a week later the new unit showed up. Installed it and the thing is purring like a kitten.

  Hats off to the folks at Shop Vac! They came through big time. I was going to be happy with buying a new switch but they went beyond my expectations.

  So there you have it. Form your own conclusions and good luck if you own a Friedrich product and be glad you own a Shop Vac product. Just my opinion, I could be wrong. – James Burns - consumer.