Eastern Iowa Report

Vet_WingChaser

Vet_WingChaser

Member
Seems like most of the conversation is about NW IA, so I figured I'd start a feed about Eastern Iowa.
I haven't had a lot of chances to get out (work and weather). But here's what I'm seeing.
Iowa River Corridor - Hunted a full day a week ago and didn't see as many birds as I was hoping to. Similar to what I've seen in the past, but with more hunters around. I hunted in the middle of the week and I still saw several other trucks. Couple out of staters as well.
Only saw one rooster, a young one, that I shot and throughout the rest of the day, Otis successfully tracked and flushed 8 hens.
That area was hit really hard opening weekend. I wasn't able to hunt since I had my daughter, but we went for a drive to see how many people were out and it was thick. I know there are plenty of birds out there, but I'll probably wait to hunt this area until later in the year when it's colder and there is less pressure.

Buffalo Creek - I hunted up in this area yesterday for half a day. I hit one small spot that is out of the way and a good walk to get to and didn't see a single bird. Disappointing, as the cover was perfect! I moved to a much larger track for the last hour of the day and found a good number of birds, but they were all flushing very wild and very far out. So far that I couldn't tell if they were rooster or hen. The positive note on this is that I finally closed in on some roosters at 4:25 and was able to get a shot off before closing time. I missed. LOL. Super thick cover and in a big hurry is what I'm blaming it on.
I was pretty deep into that track, so I had quite a walk back to the truck but I heard a lot of crowing. So I know there are decent numbers in there. They have a lot of places to hide on this one, so you'll have to work to get a bird. Planning on getting back out here soon.

Any other eastern Iowa guys want to chime in?
 
I've been out 10 or 11 days so far, walking 1.5-4.5 hours depending on how hot it was or if I had my limit. Somehow I have managed to bag a lot of birds, all but one of which were on public, even walking fields that had already been hunted that day. I have my dog to thank for this, he's nuts for birds and never quits. I have seen an amazing amount of people (and large groups) hunting on public ground and very few on private land. I slept in today and I was shocked to see I had several hundred acres to myself today, the dog found three roosters and we came home with three roosters. The numbers of roosters on the easy walking public areas is certainly declining but I'm sure once the bad weather pushes more birds into the public areas and most hunters call it a season there will be some great late season hunting to be had.
 

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scott county vizsla said:
I've been out 10 or 11 days so far, walking 1.5-4.5 hours depending on how hot it was or if I had my limit. Somehow I have managed to bag a lot of birds, all but one of which were on public, even walking fields that had already been hunted that day. I have my dog to thank for this, he's nuts for birds and never quits. I have seen an amazing amount of people (and large groups) hunting on public ground and very few on private land. I slept in today and I was shocked to see I had several hundred acres to myself today, the dog found three roosters and we came home with three roosters. The numbers of roosters on the easy walking public areas is certainly declining but I'm sure once the bad weather pushes more birds into the public areas and most hunters call it a season there will be some great late season hunting to be had.
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Hi Kevin,

I’m thinking of heading over from WI on the 28-30 of December. Can you point me in the right direction? North or south East have more areas? I’m assuming stick to the heavy cover?
jake
 
East central is the only place I have ever hunted, sadly. The Iowa Hunting Atlas on the Iowa DNR website is a good resource to check out. I hunt the triangular area between Davenport, Cedar Rapids, and Dubuque but stay as far away from them as possible.
 
scott county vizsla said:
East central is the only place I have ever hunted, sadly. The Iowa Hunting Atlas on the Iowa DNR website is a good resource to check out. I hunt the triangular area between Davenport, Cedar Rapids, and Dubuque but stay as far away from them as possible.
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Headed to SE Iowa early Sunday. Going to give it a shot.
 
Good luck! I was out that way last week found some nice tracks of public land. It was 30+ mph winds, so we didn't see much, but I found lot's of sign. beds, droppings, etc..
 
Vet_WingChaser said:
Good luck! I was out that way last week found some nice tracks of public land. It was 30+ mph winds, so we didn't see much, but I found lot's of sign. beds, droppings, etc..
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This year I have hunted NE Iowa more then I have ever done before. My group in the past years has always made the trips to the NW side of the state with good success on most hunts. My sons and I have decided to try different tracks on the NE side of the state this year and have been pleased with the number of birds that we are seeing. I have had good success this year hunting small plots that other hunters maybe passing up on to head over to the 1000 acre public hunting grounds. Yes the bird counts in the whole state seem to be strong this year but with the last few days of the season coming up on us fast I would like to end on a positive note.

Best of luck to all of you out there!

Open Ranger
 
Open Ranger said:
This year I have hunted NE Iowa more then I have ever done before. My group in the past years has always made the trips to the NW side of the state with good success on most hunts. My sons and I have decided to try different tracks on the NE side of the state this year and have been pleased with the number of birds that we are seeing. I have had good success this year hunting small plots that other hunters maybe passing up on to head over to the 1000 acre public hunting grounds. Yes the bird counts in the whole state seem to be strong this year but with the last few days of the season coming up on us fast I would like to end on a positive note.

Best of luck to all of you out there!

Open Ranger
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I'm heading to NW this weekend, which I do every year for the last weekend of the season. I have private ground to hunt on Saturday, but Friday and Sunday I plan on roaming looking for super thick cover. I'm hoping to put a few in the freezer!
 
Vet_WingChaser said:
I'm heading to NW this weekend, which I do every year for the last weekend of the season. I have private ground to hunt on Saturday, but Friday and Sunday I plan on roaming looking for super thick cover. I'm hoping to put a few in the freezer!
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My close buddies and I are heading out this weekend also, We thought we would make one last push to see if can each bag a rooster or two. We are running four dogs right now two German Shorthairs and two Setters along with a 5 Month old Brittney pup. I just take the pup out for about a half hour or so to let him burn off some energy. One shorthair is nine years old the other is just two years old. I have a 7 year old setter and my son in law has a two old male setter. I also own the puppy that hopefully will replace my older setter. Best of luck this weekend.
 
NW Iowa this Friday, Saturday and Sunday as well. Between all of us we should have the birds pretty well cornered!!!
 
scott county vizsla said:
I've been out 10 or 11 days so far, walking 1.5-4.5 hours depending on how hot it was or if I had my limit. Somehow I have managed to bag a lot of birds, all but one of which were on public, even walking fields that had already been hunted that day. I have my dog to thank for this, he's nuts for birds and never quits. I have seen an amazing amount of people (and large groups) hunting on public ground and very few on private land. I slept in today and I was shocked to see I had several hundred acres to myself today, the dog found three roosters and we came home with three roosters. The numbers of roosters on the easy walking public areas is certainly declining but I'm sure once the bad weather pushes more birds into the public areas and most hunters call it a season there will be some great late season hunting to be had.
Click to expand...
Hello Scott county viszla

I am from Ontario Canada and have a 4 yr old female viszla . She has no upland game here to practice on except for a small flight of woodcock in the fall. We use a game farm occasionally to try and train her. I was wondering does your viszla get really excited on strong scent and tend to work too quickly and pass birds? I think maybe it's just inexperience on wild birds.
Anyways I hope your season went well

Thx
Mike
 
My dog has gotten pretty good at keeping pace with running birds on a hot scent. I had to be pretty forceful with the e-collar when he was younger but now I can speed walk behind him(saying 'easy') until the chase ends. More often than not, a bird running like this flushes(usually in range) but every now and then one will try to duck off to the side and hide. When this happens, especially when tracking with a tail wind, my dog overruns the bird by a bit and as he realizes and turns back the bird often flushes immediately or only holds for a very short point . It really just takes a lot of wild bird contacts. I'm starting to work with my dad's 2 yr old female vizsla that has had very little field time, they just moved back from Indianapolis, no birds there. She loves every second and all the smells of hunting, but without enough bird contacts she doesn't hold a candle to my dog. When they are in the field together it is very easy to see how the two dogs are processing the same scents in a different manner. She smells the birds but doesn't know exactly what to do with day old, hour old, or fresh scent upon smelling it, but she's pointed and retrieved the last few times we went out. He sorts out old scent really fast, except on damp days, and knows to double back and quarter to pick up lost trails. This is just from going hunting a lot and intentionally going to areas that i knew had a lot of hens that would let us get better training work. Late season roosters can play dirty tricks on inexperienced dogs, Rusty didn't get his first rooster point, flush, retrieve until the end of his first season (7 months old). So yeah, inexperience on wild birds.
 
Thanks for the reply.
That is excellent info for me. I find my dog has the ability but I think I am not recognizing the signs in time. I was under the false pretense that every bird tracked should end up in a point. I realize by talking to more people and watching you tube that these birds run first and only hide if they are trapped. I need to recognize when it's time to run behind her.

Also I was wondering if your viszla is scared of the hi pitch beeper. Mine is. I need to try a different alert noise on her collar.
Take care
 
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