Huns and quail in northern Iowa

gimruis said:
Makes a guy wonder why the daily bag limit is still 5 given that there are none around.
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Iowa is 8 partridge 8 quail, and there probably isnt 8 partridge killed from public land in the whole season.. so no real worry.

If limits reflected directly to bird populations, can you imagine how bad that would look? Nobody would want to buy a license if the daily limit was 2 roosters, 1 quail and 1 partridge...

How about the ruffed grouse limit of 3? How many ruffed grouse do you guys recken are shot each year? Same as roosters?
 
KEOutdoors said:
How about the ruffed grouse limit of 3? How many ruffed grouse do you guys recken are shot each year? Same as roosters?
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I would generally say that grouse harvest is more than roosters here in MN. But some years its a lot more. Ruff populations go in cycles. Every 10 years their numbers peak and then they fall off again. Its not really because of habitat or weather either, its just a constant pattern. When the population is robust, the harvest can be over a million birds here, according to the DNR. But also realize that the entire northern third of the state is huntable habitat too, and there are vast state and national forests open to public hunting. Right now they are nearing their peak, I've heard good reports in the woods this season so far and will only get better as more leaves fall. I think Benelli Banger might be more familiar with ruffed grouse populations, as he is a resident of Duluth.

I can say with 100% positivity that I rarely add to those harvest numbers lol
 
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gimruis said:
I would generally say that grouse harvest is generally more than roosters here in MN. But some years its a lot more. Ruff populations go in cycles. Every 10 years their numbers peak and then they fall off again. Its not really because of habitat or weather either, its just a constant pattern. When the population is robust, the harvest can be over a million birds here, according to the DNR. But also realize that the entire northern third of the state is huntable habitat too, and there are vast state and national forests open to public hunting. Right now they are nearing their peak, I've heard good reports in the woods this season so far and will only get better as more leaves fall. I think Benelli Banger might be more familiar with ruffed grouse populations, as he is a resident of Duluth.

I can say with 100% positivity that I rarely add to those harvest numbers lol
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I have seen a bunch of them up in central and northern MN. Never seen one or heard of anyone seeing one in Iowa
 
I wonder if the "partridge" limit being high in Iowa is due to game preserves and chukar getting loose? I would imagine chukar on neighboring lands are included in partridge limit
 
I am in northeast iowa and have seen 3-4 coveys of 25 birds each all summer within 2 miles of our home. I don’t remember ever seeing this many partridge in our area.
 
I lived in Iowa from 96-2000 in north liberty a northern suburb of Iowa city and went up to northwestern Iowa for hunts and never saw a hun ( which are my favorite birds to hunt) I am from Kansas and I guess back in the late 70’s to mid 80’s the dnr tried a stocking program in brown county Kansas and from what I heard as young hunter was they survived a couple seasons. All the biologists I’ve ever talked with said Huns don’t do well in any climate with high humidity and high dew points during nesting season.
 
On the photo on page 1. The Hun with the Chesnut horseshoe on its chest is an adult. The one without is very likely an immature bird.
 
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