Birds In Iowa?

[ss1]

I am driving to Gilman Iowa the first week of January to hunt Pheasant. We have a group of 4 from Texas. Hunted Kansas several times but never Iowa. Is it worth the drive this year? I keep hearing the birds aren't there.

Help...

 

[Oggie]

Not really sure about Iowa, but where ever you decide to go good luck.

Go back and do a little reading in The Iowa section of the forum and maybe even post over there..

 

[ss1]

Thanks, will do.

 

[pheasantaddict]

If your coming to Iowa to hunt pheasants late season, you better have some good private ground lined up. There are few public areas to hunt and those areas get hunted hard. There are no walk-in areas in Iowa. If you are not hunting good private ground, you might get one bird/ group/day if your real lucky.

 

[ss1]

Hunting 3 different private farms. Mostly corn fields that haven't been hunted any this year. I've heard overall the birds are down this year. Just not sure how Gilman area looks. I hope to hear from the land owner today as to wheather or not he is holding birds.

 

[SpringerGuy]

Forget the corn fields, and hit the cattails and you should do ok. The heaver and thicker the cover the better. Don't worry about them being hunted hard, it's just us few die hards left hunting.

 

[moellermd]

You could try around Emmetsburg. It has some alright public ground. A lot of cattails to help hold late season birds.

 

[Pheasantphan]

Two of us just got back from Iowa after hunting Sunday - Tuesday. We hunted public and harvested 4 birds. They were very wild. We hunted in the area of Algona and Estherville and covered lots of ground. We saw about thirty roosters, but only had about six flush within range.

The conditions were not good - 20-30 mph winds and temps in 0 and below made hunting difficult and limited our hunting time.

The brids seemed to like the cattails or other thick cover with nearby feed.

Still had a great time.