Needing Help

I made my first trip to Iowa in late November. We stayed in Mason City and hunted the public ground around there. The weather was fine but the wind was blowing hard. We saw some birds but they came out far in front of us. Couple of questions I have is would it be better to come out early November and is there a lot of birds around Iowa City. Thanks Randy
 
Randy,

I have been hunting in the general area most of the season this year and the trips that I have been there the winds were very strong which didn't play well for our hunting plans. What weekend were you there? Coming earlier really wouldn't have mattered to much because we really didn't see that strong of numbers of birds in North Central Iowa this year. Now we have knocked down roosters on every hunt we have been on but we have done a lot of walking with the same kind of conditions that you had experienced. The roosters we were getting up most of them were breaking so early we didn't even have a chance to take a shot. I will be back there this weekend and let you know how we did.
 
Open Ranger. We were there the weekend of November 19-22 and we saw a lot of signs of birds but the wind must have messed us up. We had a good time just wish we saw more birds. I was just wondering if I could find just as many birds just over the river?
 
I hunted that general area last friday, ended up seeing 4 roosters and a dozen hens. All the roosters were long shots. I only made an honest attempt on the final bird of the day, and knocked a few feathers off but he kept flying. The first two roosters that flushed I knew it was a good little spot, but the problem is they were with a group of hens and all the birds flushed at once, with the roosters just out of range.
 
Thanks for all the replies. Bob did you hunt any private ground? I’m not sure if I should come back to Mason City or look around the eastern part of the state. If anyone can give me advice or tell me how they did in the eastern part of the state let me know. Randy
 
Your next trip head North and West of of Mason City the bird counts there have been outstanding this year. There is a lot of Public Ground to cover up there. My friends were kicking 50-60 Rooster per field. We were seeing 20 -25 per field. We had to hit the cattails very hard because that is were they were hanging out. The overall conditions have been very dry this year so we were able to go deep into the marsh areas.
 
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