IOWA Reports 2017

W

watermen

Member
Finally a cool day to hunt on the opener. The dogs and all three of us lasted the whole day. Consensus in central and SE is tough hunting. There was no significant hatch. I looked at 25-30 birds between ours, other hunters, and the hotel. All were beautiful with long spurs and long tails with the exception of 5 young birds total. We saw a ton of hens, but the ratio looked like January. Fun, but slow hunting compared to the last few years.
 
I would agree, most of the birds I saw, hunting in NE Iowa were last years birds, didn't see a lot of young birds at all. A lot of corn still in so I think mid season will be prime, but overall I thought numbers were down from last year...
 
Have seen as many if not more birds than last year. Lots of crops still in with less than desirable hunting conditions for most. Wednesday will be my first outing , because of work my
schedule, but my son ventured out Sat morning and bagged his 3 in less than 1/2 hr. Reports were that there were many hunters locally on opening weekend, although I got the indication that hunting was difficult!!
 
We saw slightly less birds than last year but a ton of corn still in and the rain on Sunday didn't help. Every bird we flushed and didn't kill flew into the corn.
 
the same four guys hunted the exact same ground as last year on opening day. last year corn still standing on the north side of crp ground this year it was still standing on the south side. we hunt till noon to satisfy the older guys. we decided the bird count was very close to the same over the past two years, we shot 6 on opening morning compared to 5 last year, and missed the same amount. shot 2 on Sunday morning in an hour hunt, compared to 1 last year. our birds were ALL young with short tail feathers. as stated a lot of corn to come out yet.
 
I hunted the first 3 days in NW Iowa on public land. There were 8 of us the first two days.

We shot 7 birds the first day and 8 on the second day.

Two of us stayed and hunted Monday in strong winds (20-30 mph with gusts to 40 mph). We each bagged one bird.

I would say that our flush rate was slightly lower than last year when we were out the second weekend in November. However we did bag more birds. Last year in the same areas we flushed about 120 birds in 3 days. This year we flushed about 90.

There was a great deal of corn still in the fields and a lot of combining going on.
 
Just got back from the Grinnell/Gilman area, hunting on private land for 3 days. 6 guys ranging from 12 to 47 years old and 4 dogs (3 gsp's and 1 english setter). We shot at 13 roosters and came home with 11. Had higher hopes given the "I've seen xx pheasants come out of this piece" speech we got from the guy who had the access to the land, but still had a good time.
 
I hunted opening day with a few others. On our land, where I saw more roosters than I have for years.

Seems they moved from my corn fields to the neighbors. Things should pick up when the neighbors get their corn out.
 
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