Honest question!!!!

B

Buster24

Member
I get reports from IDNR and you can pretty much find them on the internet…..do you feel they are factual or possibly inflated….always hear about great pheasant hunting in Iowa, but it seems bird numbers do not coincide with what IDNR posts…your thoughts…..
 
I don't think there's any doubt that Iowa has some great upland hunting. Obviously it used to be a lot better but loss of habitat and modern agriculture has had a big say in that. If they instituted mandatory buffer strips, their numbers would explode.

The selling point for nonresident hunters over maybe a SD is that you can hunt as many days as you want. Buy a license, and hunt the entire season. Whereas in SD you can only hunt for a total of 10 days. I think SD has better hunting, but Iowa is a good alternative if you don't want to hunt for days on end. There's a fair amount of MN hunters who live in the southern half of the state that can drive to Iowa for a day long hunt and then be back home the same day without having to worry about staying somewhere. I would personally rather hunt about once a week during the entire season than bunch all my hunting into one or two trips. That's just me though.

Just like anywhere else, habitat and weather are the two primary factors. Beyond that, hunting pressure will also limit your chances, especially if you are on public land later in the season.
 
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Road counts aren't an exact science, but birds counts have definitely been on the rise the last several years. If your counting birds in the air, then it would seem like the counts aren't accurate, but I would guess that for every bird you see, there are several more running from you that you never see. I personally have shot about 1/2 the number of birds I got last year, but I attribute that to hunting pressure (smarter birds) on public ground and lack of snow. My best luck the last 1/2 of the season has been on private ground with light hunting pressure. The birds actually sit tight.
 
The game warden yesterday told me he was disappointed with birds numbers this year. By that I think he meant number of harvested birds on hunters he has checked, in northern Iowa.
 
Well, the reason I made this post is because I have been hunting Iowa the past 4 days….I constantly heard about all the pressure applied on the public hunting areas….I was totally amazed that after hunting probably 12-14 different public hunting areas traveling in 4 different counties and walking close to 20 miles we did not see 1 hunter which was almost better than the roosters we saw…..we saw a few cock birds, but mostly hens…this was in the pheasant hot belt of NW Iowa….this was our 3rd season of hunting Iowa…I hunted Iowa in the 70’s and 80’s and always had success, but the habitat has really changed and not for the better….not really impressed at all….I know that some hunters are having luck, but my opinion…..and I could be wrong, but numbers are inflated as well as posts…Iowa is no longer a pheasant hot spot…..going to South Dakota next year….governor Noem can’t be wrong!!!!!
 
No birds in Iowa, nothing to see here, keep moving. Well, I did see one once. If there is habitat, there will be birds. In Iowa, the trick is to get permission, as there is little public access ground. If Cy and I get surveyed in the same season, the season harvest report numbers might change.

Buster, I think you are late to the party. The weather has been so nice (too nice) that every casual hunter has continued to hunt past the opening weekend or 2. Where do causal hunters hunt....public ground mostly. Even near me (all private) I almost always have been hearing shooting...not a normal thing in recent years. You saw hens, right? We have been busy with the compressor on our numbers and posts. I will speculate that Iowa harvest number will be big this season as will be in all the normal states. I do agree the private ground areas are disappearing as I type, waterways continue to be cleared and tiled, 2 nice places within 10 miles of me, that I have hunted, are gone within the last month. If the CRP program doesn't continue, the bird hunting here will similar to states east of us, within a decade. Get to know SD, it will be the future...and is pretty good now, as I understand it.
 
gimruis said:
I don't think there's any doubt that Iowa has some great upland hunting. Obviously it used to be a lot better but loss of habitat and modern agriculture has had a big say in that. If they instituted mandatory buffer strips, their numbers would explode.

The selling point for nonresident hunters over maybe a SD is that you can hunt as many days as you want. Buy a license, and hunt the entire season. Whereas in SD you can only hunt for a total of 10 days. I think SD has better hunting, but Iowa is a good alternative if you don't want to hunt for days on end. There's a fair amount of MN hunters who live in the southern half of the state that can drive to Iowa for a day long hunt and then be back home the same day without having to worry about staying somewhere. I would personally rather hunt about once a week during the entire season than bunch all my hunting into one or two trips. That's just me though.

Just like anywhere else, habitat and weather are the two primary factors. Beyond that, hunting pressure will also limit your chances, especially if you are on public land later in the season.
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It is in the works for Iowa to follow the same license structure as South Dakota...as an Iowa NR, I hope not. I live just across the river in Omaha, NE and my in-laws farm a bunch in Iowa. I realize I am very fortunate to have access to the ground that I do, and I hope it continues. We've bagged 64 roosters this year and it has by FAR been our best season I can remember.
 
Brown Dog, I think you mistakenly posted those phez pics under the Iowa section, well all know those couldn't have come from that state. I did get my 3 this morning, I won't tell which state they were harvested from, but it rhymes with Kowa. Bitchin beard on your man! Good pics.
 
brown dog said:
It is in the works for Iowa to follow the same license structure as South Dakota...as an Iowa NR, I hope not.
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Ya that would not be good, certainly for people like you that live near the border with good access just across.

You probably have more info and insight on that than I do.
 
Just had a feeling I would catch a few tongue in cheek remarks, but I can handle the humor……I still stand by my remarks after pounding maybe 13-14 IHAPS and WMA…with majority hens……few roosters pecking away in food plots…..still had a great time with my son and the friendly folks of Iowa!!!!!
 
My own two cents..

1) Hunting pressure this year was 2x anything I've seen in the past several years. Public lands particularly, but even private lands. The past few weeks I've hunted some "prime" private spots and struggled to kill more than a handful of birds (with good dogs and pretty solid shooting). Years past these spots would make for easy limits. I think bird numbers were down a bit in my area than years past, but still strong. Hunting pressure and mild weather were to the two primary factors. Birds just aren't going to continue going back to the same cover they are getting hunted in frequently if the weather does not force them to do so.

2) A lot more birds were shot early on. Most the crops in Iowa were out very early this year meaning early season roosters were pretty easy to come by when the big groups hit the fields the first few weekends. I think the rooster harvest was massive during the first couple of weekends. Also had some pleasant weather around the Holidays which doubled down on the already pressured birds.

3) Iowa can only tolerate so many hunters. There just aren't that many spots to hunt compared to the Dakota's. Some counties in Iowa may only have a couple of spots worthwhile to pheasant hunt, and in those areas they are probably getting hunted several times a week, maybe even multiple times a day. Where the habitat is good in Iowa, there are birds, but there's not that much of it to go around, so when the hunting pressure jumps, it really makes an impact.

4) Finally, the weather. The weather for the most part this year was very pleasant to be outside in. Didn't get many days below 30 degrees, winds were calm (relatively speaking), and the snow was nonexistent for the most part. Put these together and it means more people are out hunting, but the birds are much more scattered and able to hang out in marginal cover. Road ditches, fencelines, unplowed crop fields, etc. If we get this big snow storm they are expecting this week, I would venture to guess you could go and walk those public lands you mentioned and see possibly hundreds of birds on say January 15th or so.
 
@cyclonenation10 I think you are correct. I don't hunt Iowa but the two primary factors have to be the increased pressure, very likely due to the mild hunting conditions.

I got 3 inches of rain on Christmas for cryin' out loud. That right there should tell you how mild it was the entire fall. The lakes here around the Twin Cities are still wide open water. Haven't seen that since I moved here in 1991.
 
gimruis said:
@cyclonenation10 I think you are correct. I don't hunt Iowa but the two primary factors have to be the increased pressure, very likely due to the mild hunting conditions.

I got 3 inches of rain on Christmas for cryin' out loud. That right there should tell you how mild it was the entire fall. The lakes here around the Twin Cities are still wide open water. Haven't seen that since I moved here in 1991.
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Where did you move from?
 
Buster24 said:
Just had a feeling I would catch a few tongue in cheek remarks, but I can handle the humor……I still stand by my remarks after pounding maybe 13-14 IHAPS and WMA…with majority hens……few roosters pecking away in food plots…..still had a great time with my son and the friendly folks of Iowa!!!!!
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What you described is real common in pheasant hunting regardless of state. You try public ground later in the year and you see a lot more hens than roosters. Many of the Rudy roosters have been harvested and others educated. There were probably a few roosters around that ran out of the field while you were hunting it. This happens to everyone. There's a lot of birds with a Ph.D. by now, and are almost unhuntable. As for not seeing other hunters out that is great. That's really common on weekdays but not so much on weekends. I started my season in MN and it was really good. Then when Iowa opened I hunted down there and it was really good. By the end of season the two states were undistinguishable as far as hunting success. I've had days I left Iowa to go hunt MN and vice versa.
 
I will be quite surprised if Iowa doesn't post Jethro sized harvest figure for this season. I have heard shooting from others almost everytime out, including yesterday when I didn't start until 11:00. This fair weather that we had all seaon, has been a real game changer for most causal pheasant hunters. Now we need to miss the big snow today...and hope it stays where it lays, when the forecast winds try to fill the cover with it tomorrow.
 
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