Looking for help

[Canadianvizsla]

Hello locals. I have been reading all the threads for quite some time and enjoy your stories as well as try to learn. I am from Ontario Canada and hunted Iowa as a young man a few times in the 90's. Back then birds were second in abundancy to places to hunt them. Over the past few years as my kids have grown up I have returned to Iowa to hunt pheasants with our family Viszla. I have come to realize that I have much to learn if I want to be successful. The past two visits to your state over two different 3 day hunts we managed only 2 rooster flushes and 1 bird in the bag.
My question for any locals interested would be to see if next fall if you would be interested in meeting myself and my buddy and helping learn how better to get on birds. Any info on what to look for in a property or how to hunt it would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks to all who read this post. Looking forward to any replies.
Best wishes from Canada
Mike

 

[Open Ranger]

Mike,

I am sorry to hear that you trips to Iowa didn't produce many birds. I have been hunting Iowa for years and yes there are days when I have not been successful also but I have never judged the success of my hunts by how many birds we put in the bag. My sons and I have always hunted with pointing dogs and maybe we could offer some advise on hunting in Iowa. Iowa is blessed with many public hunting areas that offer good tracks of ground that will hold birds through out the season. How old is your Vizsla? If you truly want to come back I can give you some advise on the best areas that you can check out to help you be more successful or even tag along with our group for a hunt to experience all that Iowa has to offer.

Best regards,

Open Ranger

 

[remy3424]

I will guess that Dickinson Cty has a lot of public ground and lots of birds...those in Dickinson county should be vehemently denying this! It is wetter there and more un-tillible acres is why I suspect this. This year those wet areas, might be dry. Were you hunting eastern Iowa when you had trouble finding birds? Not much public ground in my area, IHAP acres.

 

[Open Ranger]

Remy,

Most of my hunts in the past few years have been Cerro Gordo and Hancock Counties which I did early this year. Since Mid November I have been Fayette, Winneshiek and Howard. In past years I would not have even paid any attention at all to these areas but in IHAP Fayette 4 & 5 had a decent amount of Big Roosters this year for sure 2nd year birds. I turned 61 a Mid December and I consider myself an avid Upland Bird Hunter who is always up for the challenge. Now I will say this we had to work for the birds and we were not getting multiple bird flushes like other areas of the state but our group of 4 were getting several points on each field and the roosters we knock down were very healthy birds. I am just excited to see the population of pheasants seems to have come back because of the mild winter and not to wet of a spring in 2020. COVID for sure change some of my hunting trips with my buddies this year but you just adjust and try to make the best of what you are dealing with.

 

[Canadianvizsla]

Mike,

I am sorry to hear that you trips to Iowa didn't produce many birds. I have been hunting Iowa for years and yes there are days when I have not been successful also but I have never judged the success of my hunts by how many birds we put in the bag. My sons and I have always hunted with pointing dogs and maybe we could offer some advise on hunting in Iowa. Iowa is blessed with many public hunting areas that offer good tracks of ground that will hold birds through out the season. How old is your Vizsla? If you truly want to come back I can give you some advise on the best areas that you can check out to help you be more successful or even tag along with our group for a hunt to experience all that Iowa has to offer.

Best regards,

Open Ranger

Mike,

I am sorry to hear that you trips to Iowa didn't produce many birds. I have been hunting Iowa for years and yes there are days when I have not been successful also but I have never judged the success of my hunts by how many birds we put in the bag. My sons and I have always hunted with pointing dogs and maybe we could offer some advise on hunting in Iowa. Iowa is blessed with many public hunting areas that offer good tracks of ground that will hold birds through out the season. How old is your Vizsla? If you truly want to come back I can give you some advise on the best areas that you can check out to help you be more successful or even tag along with our group for a hunt to experience all that Iowa has to offer.

Best regards,

Open Ranger

Open Ranger

Thx for the reply. Just to be clear I was not in any way complaining about our trips. We loved every minute we were there. Iowa has some amazing lands to discover and we met some excellent people. That is why we will be coming back. We were supposed to come this year but covid closed the borders. Years ago we anchored our visits out of Iowa city but the last 2 trips we moved to Marshalltown and also headed a little more west along 80 at times. My viszla just turned 4 and has never had training but works very well. She tends to get too excited and speeds up on strong scent and will flush instead of point at times. We have only hunted 2 guys and 1 dog and have had to hunt some pretty big public lands with birds much more wise than us. We would love to learn more about tracking down birds or things to do better. We don't need to see much to be happy as we have zero birds to hunt in Ontario. If covid ever clears up we may head out late summer to scout and try to get some permission. Would love to buy some local hunters a beer and just pick their brain a little.

 

[Canadianvizsla]

I will guess that Dickinson Cty has a lot of public ground and lots of birds...those in Dickinson county should be vehemently denying this! It is wetter there and more un-tillible

I will guess that Dickinson Cty has a lot of public ground and lots of birds...those in Dickinson county should be vehemently denying this! It is wetter there and more un-tillible acres is why I suspect this. This year those wet areas, might be dry. Were you hunting eastern Iowa when you had trouble finding birds? Not much public ground in my area, IHAP acres.

acres is why I suspect this. This year those wet areas, might be dry. Were you hunting eastern Iowa when you had trouble finding birds? Not much public ground in my area, IHAP acres.

 

[Canadianvizsla]

Hi Remy

Thx for reply. We were hunting out of Marshalltown area usually north of there. We hit a bunch of public property. We were there second week of november and could tell the properties had been hit a bunch before we were there. We did see signs of birds in the light snow that was there but they escaped us without a flush. Inexperience on our part I think hurts us. We still had great time and met some awesome people. We did find a couple private crp plots that had lots of birds but couldn't get permission to hunt. It was still pretty great to see 15 or so birds flushing just before dark heading to roost.

 

[Open Ranger]

Mike,

Great to hear that you enjoy your hunting trips to Iowa. I have always enjoyed meeting new people in the state and they truly are very welcoming to all. Us COVID 19 did change our hunting plans also this year because we actually pulled a small trailer and made all are lunches in the field where in the past we would take a break head into town to talk with the locals. I am very familiar with the Marshalltown area and yes there are a good number of birds in that region. If you would like I could send you some maps where the heaviest bird population is by region of the state if you would like. The past few years the best hunting in the state was in the North West and North Central sections of the state. Do you have family back in this area that you come down from Ontario. I know that is a heck of a hall just to come bird hunting. Years ago I was doing some work at an Army base (Fort Drum) in Watertown New York and once in a while my buddies and would sneak over to Kingston Ontario to drink Canadian Beer and watch you football on a Sunday. All I can remember about our trips were that we all had a lot of fun because the exchange rate on the dollar was like two to one and the further inland away from the boarder the less people understood so we were getting like 3 to 4 to our $1.00 US. Made it a lot of fun everyplace we went!

Take care,

Open Ranger

 

[Canadianvizsla]

Mike,

Great to hear that you enjoy your hunting trips to Iowa. I have always enjoyed meeting new people in the state and they truly are very welcoming to all. Us COVID 19 did change our hunting plans also this year because we actually pulled a small trailer and made all are lunches in the field where in the past we would take a break head into town to talk with the locals. I am very familiar with the Marshalltown area and yes there are a good number of birds in that region. If you would like I could send you some maps where the heaviest bird population is by region of the state if you would like. The past few years the best hunting in the state was in the North West and North Central sections of the state. Do you have family back in this area that you come down from Ontario. I know that is a heck of a hall just to come bird hunting. Years ago I was doing some work at an Army base (Fort Drum) in Watertown New York and once in a while my buddies and would sneak over to Kingston Ontario to drink Canadian Beer and watch you football on a Sunday. All I can remember about our trips were that we all had a lot of fun because the exchange rate on the dollar was like two to one and the further inland away from the boarder the less people understood so we were getting like 3 to 4 to our $1.00 US. Made it a lot of fun everyplace we went!

Take care,

Open Ranger

Open Ranger
I like the idea of travelling around and using the trailer but I agree it strips away the fun of entering different towns meeting people and trying some local pubs. We have in the past used the dnr pheasant counts to try to center our hunts in the heavier pheasant count areas. That's what moved us away from Iowa city up towards Marshalltown. Our original reason for coming to Iowa in the 90's was an article in a hunting magazine labeling Grinnel Iowa the pheasant Capitol of the U.S. as avid hunters in our 20's we planned a road trip and headed out. No dog and only couple guys we saw tonnes of birds and had a blast. We were hooked. I have no family in Iowa just get excited every time I think of those days . Times have changed and crp is harder to find, commercial farming has taken over and the birds are way harder to find. Now I need to become a better hunter. That's why I am reaching out. Next fall my buddy my viszla and I are going to spend 2 days hunting Iowa and 2 more in south dakota. We may try NW Iowa this time. Its 9 hrs for us to get to Marshalltown so a couple more is no big deal.

Also I enjoyed the story of Kingston you tell. Sometimes the best memories are created by random unexpected events.
Stay safe
Mike

 

[Open Ranger]

Mike,

I have been pheasant hunting in Iowa since the the early 1980's and back then Iowa was known to have more hunters than South Dakota. A careful choice of words because South Dakota still produced more Pheasants back then but the hunters flocked to Iowa each fall because the state had better accommodations for the hunters when it came to hotels, restaurants and access to land. Farming practices have certainly change since I was a young man so we are just happy to be able to continue to run our dogs and down a rooster or two on our weekend hunts. I will attached a couple of photos of our hunts in the north central to give you of an example of the success we have had.

 

[gimruis]

Farming practices have certainly change since I was a young man

Here is the answer to the riddle. Not NEARLY as much habitat. Wetlands drained, fence rows removed, all marginal land taken out. Virtually nothing but row crops as far as the eye can see. Iowa might be the best example of any state on how modern agriculture can wipe out a pheasant population. As recently as 15 years ago, they harvested over a million roosters. It dropped to just over 100,000 a decade later.

It should continue to still have birds in pockets of the state. But trying to expect the glory days during the present day is just not gonna happen. Like my retired supervisor always said: "When the price goes down, you plant more. When the price goes up, you plant more."

 

[Open Ranger]

Here is the answer to the riddle. Not NEARLY as much habitat. Wetlands drained, fence rows removed, all marginal land taken out. Virtually nothing but row crops as far as the eye can see. Iowa might be the best example of any state on how modern agriculture can wipe out a pheasant population. As recently as 15 years ago, they harvested over a million roosters. It dropped to just over 100,000 a decade later.

It should continue to still have birds in pockets of the state. But trying to expect the glory days during the present day is just not gonna happen.

I can't agree with you more!

 

[Canadianvizsla]

I can't agree with you more!

Hey guys.

You make excellent points. When we came in the mid 90's the habitat was amazing. It was very much like southwestern Ontario. Each farm was about 100 acres with ditches and fence rows in between each farm. There seemed to be small pockets of cover on every 100 acre plot. When we came back for the first time 12 yrs later the change in landscape was astonishing. 1000 acre farms were everywhere with all fence rows and ditches and sloughs plowed under and turned into row crops. Cover was hard to find and when u found it land owners were very reluctant to give permission and understandably so. I know there is plenty of good hunting left as proven by open rangers awesome pics. We are excited to learn more so we can continue to come and enjoy your amazing state. Thanks for helping us this forum is really great.
Mike