public land bowhunt in zone 4 or 5 iowa?
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: lovetohunt
24-Nov-14
I have 3 pps and hope to draw a tag for Iowa next season. me and my cousin will be hunting public land and since we will be coming from Mississippi a scouting trip will probably be out of our reach. its probably going to be pick a spot from Google maps and go scout one day and try to do our best hang stands and hunt. anyone got any suggestions on a good starting place to help shorten our scouting time? also what is the best time of the year to be in Iowa to catch the big boys up on their feet cousin for does?
any feed back would be great, thanks
From: lovetohunt
24-Nov-14
I was looking at wolf hollow or Stephens forest. any experience with either or any other suggestions I might look at?
thanks for the feed back. we were looking at the nov. the 4th thru the 11th
From: lovetohunt
24-Nov-14
Thanks for the help man I will check that out.
From: cityhunter
24-Nov-14
understand numbers are way down in zone 5 due to EHD and jan doe rifle season. Check out Bill Winke online show!! poor guy looks depressed can find a shooter !! One outfitter in zone5 has only two bow kills on mature bucks this year!
From: standswittaknife
24-Nov-14
That's why I have 6 pts city...
From: Zim1
25-Nov-14
lth, Be prepared for company on the IA public land. Been going there off & on since 1990 and gets worst every year. Mostly residents joining the bandwagon. The part I really hate is they allow camping in the parking lots. So where I go these Aholes park 3 motorhomes and a trailer with an ATV in the parking area, taking up 150% of the lot. Incredibly rude. And ATV's aren't even legal to drive on the public but they obviously do it and the CO's do absolutely nothing. I know because I called to report them when I visually saw them.
Anyway my best suggestion is to hunt parking areas where there is no other vehicle, regardless of what the habitat looks like. Even if it's just old fields. You will have a good hunt.
From: standswittaknife
25-Nov-14
And there in lies my problem! I never read the rules and just bought another point.. I'm good now tho!
From: Zim1
25-Nov-14
I thought it might be getting close to 4 points for zone 5. Thank god I finally found a few local public lands good enough for me to pocket my Iowa points for now. Only took 25 years and scouting 30+ properties to finally stumble onto some public not brutally overpressured. But it will feel good to have them when the day comes I need them. Only a matter of time before some guy from Tennessee or Georgia & their entourage walks into my finds.
From: lovetohunt
25-Nov-14
so how does IA public hunting compare to north east Missouri(deer quality and numbers). better, worse or about the same? anybody got experience in both states in resent years?
I've been hunting Putnam and pike county Missouri for the last 6 yrs and like it but everybody always said Iowa was the place to be so I started putting in and here I am
From: BoonROTO
25-Nov-14
I hunted Stephens Forest in 2012 and encountered lots of pressure. It looked like the fourth of July with all the head lamps exiting the woods. I saw deer but it wasn't the type of hunt I was looking for, I looked elsewhere and managed to get away from most of the pressure and did very well. I saw five deer over 150" over the course of one week. I passed a fully mature 140" buck at five yards and missed a legitimate 200" buck at twenty yards. It still gives me nightmares. I hope to draw again in 2016 and I have my trees prepped and ready to sit. My advice is to avoid the big timber tracts, it draws lots of hunters, think outside the box.
From: SteveB
25-Nov-14
5 points for me and thinking about 2015. Have not a clue where to go if don't use an outfitter.
From: Ollie
25-Nov-14
Often you can find smaller tracts of public lands with little pressure. It requires time and effort on your part to locate them. It would be well worth your time to drive to Iowa in late winter and get in a weekend of scouting and familiarizing yourself with the area. It would be a shame to accumulate a lot of preference points and then not be ready to hunt due to lack of on-ground preparation. It's not that difficult in some areas to get permission to hunt private lands. Many farmers consider deer to be big brown rats and would just as soon have every deer dead. I hunt southeast Iowa and consider the second week of November as the best. This year, most bucks were breeding does by Nov. 10...the dreaded "lockdown".
From: Zim1
25-Nov-14
Yup I drove to Iowa for a long weekend of scouting 3 years ago, and will again this year, despite I won't draw until 2016. Saving all the specific trees on GPS makes it especially worthwhile.
From: StrutNut
25-Nov-14
I have a coworker that has a lease in zone 5. His crew shot some nice ones. I just have a hard time with my limited income dropping that kind of cash for a deer tag when I can get an elk tag BUT I am going to put in as I do have a spot to hunt and stay for free and I have a team that I manage in Des Moines so I can kind of make it a "Business Trip". I am guessing it will take at least 3 years though.
From: SteveB
25-Nov-14
archery95: I typed 5 but meant 4. I went for 4 as one extra for insurance against point creep. Well worth it for $50 IMHO. If for some reason I don't go this year I will stop at 4 for sure.
From: midwest
25-Nov-14
"I saw five deer over 150" over the course of one week. I passed a fully mature 140" buck at five yards and missed a legitimate 200" buck at twenty yards. It still gives me nightmares."
Did Lee and Tiffany know you were hunting there? ;-)
From: BoonROTO
25-Nov-14
"Did Lee and Tiffany know you were hunting there? ;-)"
Lee and Tiffs ground had nothing on one of the spots, lol. Know one would give it a second look and it was full of big deer.
From: cityhunter
25-Nov-14
Andrew isn't it strange ho them big deer have luck on there side
From: BoonROTO
26-Nov-14
Not always, but no doubt more often than not!
From: Bill in MI
26-Nov-14
If you PM me, I'll help you.
