The country’s fifth most populous state, with close to 95-percent of lands held in private hands, just received a $500,000+ boost toward public access. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources has collected a $525,250 federal grant earmarked to provide public access to private lands for hunting and fishing. The state’s Recreational Access Program will start enrolling landowners in the Illinois and Kaskaskia river watersheds later this year. “Landowners will be offered $12 to $65 per acre for impounded surface water; $1,000 to $2,500 per mile of river access; $500 to $2,500 per mile of stream access; and $1.50 to $35 per acre for hunting. Each of those figures represents a per year figure.”Source Link
Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.