NW Iowa report 11-12-20

K

Kevin W

Active member
So after pheasant hunting the past couple of days in NW Iowa I can report the pheasants on the public area's I hunt are very spooky / jumpy. Hunting the ditches has picked up since the snow, but with 40+ degree temps coming in the next few days the snow is going to quickly turn dirt to mud.
Private access has eluded me, whether it's a bird sitting on the edge of cover or just good looking cover I am amazed at the number of no's. Maybe it's the Covid 19 scare or landowners just don't let people hunt. I don't know, I bet I've knocked on 30 or so doors and all have been a no so far. I will keep trying though!!!
Still I've managed a few roosters (should have had a limit today but my shooting was atrocious!!!) and the most positive note my 1 yr old female lab "Kepa" is doing great and been able to get on some birds.
 
Was going to hunt in sw Minnesota north of Worthington starting Monday the 16th. Where were you in Iowa and how was the snow? Do not want to make the long drive if the snow is too tough to hunt or covering most of the grassy cover.
 
I did not go hunting today, I have the next 9 days off and plan on hunting more of them than not. With the sun and temps we are having today though I would imagine alot of the snow will be melted in the area's I hunted yesterday. That said I have not hunted the Iowa counties right below the Minnesota state line (the second tier counties are as far north as I get) so I cannot say for sure what you will find.
 
Kevin W said:
I did not go hunting today, I have the next 9 days off and plan on hunting more of them than not. With the sun and temps we are having today though I would imagine alot of the snow will be melted in the area's I hunted yesterday. That said I have not hunted the Iowa counties right below the Minnesota state line (the second tier counties are as far north as I get) so I cannot say for sure what you will find.
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Thx. Good luck next 9 days. Just talked to tow driver in town and he said 8 inches now down to probably 4. I wont hunt until Monday so with forecast probably okay. Just a muddy mess.
 
I just finished my 3rd weekend in a row and it has not been a very good year. We keep saying its the weather because we have had all kinds of unfortunate weather conditions with super high wind topping the list. Still I think we should have seen more birds. Last Friday I didn't shoot a single bird hunting all day and that just doesn't happen. I got two sat at the end of a long dejected day. My buddy got one at the end of the day Sat and he's better at it than I am. We were hunting separately in our own vehicles because we brought our wives down this past weekend. I came home with 2 birds. I usually do better grouse hunting. I have been hunting Iowa exclusively for many years and I have not seen it get better. Every year there are a litany of excuses why we aren't seeing them. Usually standing corn takes the blame but we cant use that excuse this year.
In years past we often got our daily limit. Especially when no more than two of us were hunting together. Not this year.
 
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MinnHunter I echo your report. Rather than drive 2 hrs north to the large public tracts of NW Iowa I need to start looking more east and see if the pheasant hunting is any better around Ida, Sac and Calhoun counties. The hunting keeps getting tougher up north where I have been going. My young lab Kepa is getting a few hen flushes everyday at least but the rooster flushes are just too far in between to keep putting on those miles.
 
Today rather than head west I tried a couple (new to me) Osceola and Dickinson counties public hunting area's. My brother in law gave me a place (Wildlife Management Area) to start at. His mother in law lives in the area and he hunts it every Christmas when he comes back with good results. So I asked him for a starting spot and he was kind enough to oblige. I was impressed with the WMA he suggested, there is just so much great looking cover. In the first spot my lab and I were able to flush a few pheasants but they all flushed wild. I could tell from my young lab that she was on birds but they were really running on us. We made a big loop that took about 2 hrs to walk and flushed 6 or 7 pheasants out of range. All of the pheasants I was able to see land did so back into the public spots cover. I tried to take Kepa over to an area two roosters landed but the cattails were so thick we never did see them again.
After that walk I road hunted around the area and found a couple county managed public hunting area's not listed on the IDNR website. We walked one of those and again flushed a few pheasants but all out of range and again what I could see land did so back into the hunting area's cover.
All told today I bet I found 6 or 7 public hunting spots that I didn't know existed and all looked really good, at one of them I met a local hunter who was one of 4 in his group (4 guys two trucks and 3 dogs. They were just starting at a public spot and had an interesting strategy. They dropped one guy and a dog off at 3 corners and the fourth guy (the one I talked to) went to the 4th corner and waited. They hunted in a coordinated way that led them back to the 4th corner and guy with his pickup truck. I didn't stay to see if they had any success but this guy told me they tend to shoot as many roosters flying towards them from one of the other hunters as they do the one's they get flushing in front of them.
I also asked tried to gain permission at two farms today with really nice looking draws / waterways by asking and was told "sorry no" at each.
So today's report is 20 something pheasants seen with 6 or 7 being roosters, just couldn't get on them in range.
I am thinking to get birds to hold, crappy weather may be the best time to hunt these large public area's up north?
Not a great report but a report none the less. Tomorrow I am thinking I will head west instead of north. If I do I will report on that as well.
 
I hope things get better for you Kevin, might be some light snow tonight, but guessing it won't amount to anything. Saturday I am going to a new-to-me place, it gets hunted regularly, so it will be interesting to see how we do. Sunday also we are going to be in a new-to-me spot that also gets hunted often. Will post how the weekend goes for us.
 
We got 4 this morning, very fine conditions, no wind, full sun. Shooting was off a little, there were 3 that we shot at that we should have got, but they didn't feel the same it seemed. The first hour, the sun has just risen and it was really hard to tell the hens from roosters, we likely left several roosters go. No lost birds, which was amazing, due to the cover we were in.
 
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