Iowa Opener

Who is going and what part of the state are you headed to?

We are going to be in Northeast Iowa on a 120 patch of private CRP with 4 guys and 1 dog.
 
NW. Heading down early Friday as usual for a fun time hanging out with our group before fighting the weather sat morning. Speaking of weather........
 
NW. jmn, I will be within 30 miles of Cherokee. Sounds like it will be me and my hunting buddy, maybe my brother and one of his SILs, my father and a family friend. My father will be 87 in a couple weeks, he and our family friend will be "blockers", as we will ultimately push birds in to a corner where they should be able to get some good shooting in. For dogs, my 2.5 year old GSP will be working alone this season. I will post pics if we get one.
 
It was 62°and raining this morning. We have had more rain in the last 30 days than we received all summer...that seems accurate anyway. We haven't had a killing freeze yet, but change is coming! For the opener saturday, 2 days from now, it should be in the 20s, making it to the mid 30s for a high and maybe snow for part of the day. That will keep the fair weather guys inside. The recent rains have slowed the corn harvest, so that could hamper the bird harvest a bit. Ready to go!

Edit. Sioux City opener forecast: High temp of 30*, 1-4 inches of snow, wind under 10 mph. Hope the snow holds off until noon anyway. Next weekend (over a week away) is saying mid 50s...the city kids can hunt then.
 
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I just fired up the pickup, and am headed toward the Carroll area. I have a friend who’s family farms up that way, so we always meet up for the opener.

Looking forward to being up there. I love your state!
 
Well, my brother and his SIL are out, dipping in to the well to recruit a couple more. Have a couple "maybes", if their kid's activities aren't in the morning. Sad when you have trouble finding opening day hunters. People are just losing or have lost their desire to hunt. Guessing in 20-30 years there will be very little interest in hunting if things don't change.
 
Got to the in laws a couple hours ago. The Little Sioux looks great, better than all summer. Will be out most of the weekend in NW IA. Cannot wait for tomorrow.
 
A great opener was had. I saw another group and heard several volleys of shooting while we were out, so that was good that we do have active hunters around.
 
I went out around 10:00 like every other opener to avoid the crowds, but nearly every parking lot was full to my surprise. I found an area to hunt and found birds, but the roosters were running and getting up on the edge of gun range. I got a couple of shots but didn’t connect. The 1st rooster flew over the hill towards another group and I heard shots, but not sure if they got him or not.
The dogs did great and aren’t too sore today so we’ll head back out in a few hours and try a different area.
 
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