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Welcome to Pittsfield, Illinois

Already considered one of the premier deer hunting locales in the country, Pike County can boast of another honor.

It's home to one of the top five hunting towns in America.

After surveying biologists, magazine editors and other outdoor industry executives, the pro staff at Realtree.com ranked the best hunting spots and tagged Pittsfield as No. 5.

The survey revealed four criteria must be met for any town to sniff the list. Those four things are:

• Every great hunting town needs a variety of game;
• It has to have cafés, hole-in-the wall restaurants, inexpensive hotels, meat processors, and a game and fish office nearby doesn't hurt, either;
• Tons of public hunting land within an hour's drive;
• And interesting stuff to see if you tag out early or just get tired of hunting.

According to the Reatree staff, Pittsfield qualifies not only for its world-class deer population, but "has a long tradition of hunting native bobwhite quail and working with bird dogs. And the duck hunting is literally out of this world. Hunt diver ducks along the great Mississippi River, or mallards, wood ducks and teal in flooded bean, corn and millet fields."

The other towns making the list were Albuquerque, N.M.; Crosset, Ark.; Baker City, Ore.; and St. Joseph, Mo.