Scouting

A

Amos

New member
I'm looking for advice on scouting for places to hunt. I assume the most probable way is to put on miles driving up and down the roads looking for farms that have a reasonable amount of CRP in their fields and relatively open surroundings. It seems kind of tricky to pick out areas of CRP on aerial photographs. My plan is to hopefully do some driving around and knocking on some doors of farms that look like they may have potential of holding birds. I'll be hunting in or around Allamakee, and I know there isn't the habitat there as there is further west.

So my next question is would it be worth it to go west past Decorah maybe around Cresco or even further to Mitchell or Worth Counties? With the ground flattening out after Decorah, I would think the birds pick up as well.

I'm willing to do what it takes to find some areas(private or public) to hunt for myself and my new pup. I don't have a lot of time to put into pheasant hunting since I spend most of my time bowhunting, but I'll most likely be trying for birds around Thanksgiving to escape the orange army in this state, and I'll probably have more time late season, if the weather permits.

I'm not looking for exact locations, but rather any tips or advice that can be offered. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
I have hunted Iowa the last 4 years and private ground is hard to get on. We hunt nothing but public ground now and have found alot of birds but the lasts 2 years have been tough. We usually stop hunting about 45 minutes before legal shooting hours are over and drive around looking for birds for the next morning. The better areas are typically west and north. Buy an Iowa Sportsmans Atlas and it will show you where all the public land is for each county. Good luck!
 
I imagine your talking about the NE part of the state. I don't know that area, but I would look for an area that has some public ground also. If you can't find private ground to hunt on. I see more bird hunters around Thanksgiving than any other time. You might want to try a week or two earlier.
 
If it was me I would drive another 3 hours west towards the Spirit Lake area. Worth the dive I think.
 
You could only drive 2 and a half and end up with decent hunting as well if you can get around the minnesota hunters on the public ground.
 
i would drive a little farther than worth or mitchel counties. we have not recovered from the floods 2 years ago.if you wait till after the first 2 or 3 weeks most of the hunting pressure is gone. grew up in kossuth county. best hunting is on the public ground. get a current iowa sportsman atlas . lots of new areas the last couple years that are not on maps.
 
Seems like north central and north west is certainly the way to go. I figured the further west the better it gets. Seems like there is quite a few WMAs in north central, all of which offer the opportunity for pheasants. I kinda thought maybe Thanksgiving brings out more hunters, but it also seems to hold true that after opening weekend the pressure drops off quite a bit. That's fine since the season opens when bowhunting is prime.;) I'll continue to look into things and check out the Sportsmans Atlas. Thanks for all ya'lls input. I'm sure I'll have more questions before long.:eek:
 
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