Your Thoughts on Current Deer Population
Iowa
Contributors to this thread:
Living in the SW part of the state, we were hit hard by EHD... I'd like to hear your thoughts on # of deer your seeing this year vs last, quality of bucks, etc... My 10 or so Trail Cameras have been slow in comparison to years past, including nothing bigger than a 140" and only 3-4 of those on camera. Think I will only be filling the freezer with does this year and hopefully next year we'll see a few bigger ones (BTW - I never shot a deer in IA last year where as I normally shoot 6-8 for the freezer). Sure wish they would have stopped the Jan rifle season for does (of which many bucks get shot since most have dropped their horns). Your thoughts...
the high power season is a joke-EHD served to lower the numbers but still the Governor(insurance company puppet) ignores the biologists and increases the doe harvest-it is up to US to shoot LESS.
I hunt Montgomery County (Red Oak) Zone 4 and numbers appear to be late 90s levels.Should please the politicians.
NE corner and numbers are down. Way fewer than last year and only one decent sized buck all summer. I too held off taking anything last year but one guy doesn't have much impact.
Southern Iowa 2nd year in a row with EHD problem. Don't know for sure how bad it will be. Will know more after season starts.
Mike
I am seeing about 50% fewer bucks than last year. North Central Kansas
EHD and CWD the same thing ? Whatever, lots of dead deer being found , especilly in So. Iowa. DNR not reporting how serious it's becoming, not that they could do anything about it except cut way back on tags.
I hunt west central Iowa , Crawford county and there seems to be a fair population here !
IH-EHD and CWD arent the same.No CWD in wild Iowa deer-yet (although the current deer "farming" practices and deer shipping put that at risk.The problem summer of 2012 and less so but again summer of 2013 has been EHD.
ps Go Cyclones! :)
Have hunted every day since the opener. Absolutely no doubt that numbers are down, again, this year. I've seen a few yearly bucks born in '12 with little spikes or forks, and a couple of 8 pointers a year or so lolder. What is really down are family units, does with fawns.
Things around Jackson county aren't as good as they were, say.... 4 years ago, but there's enough of a population here to take a doe or a decent buck. I just won't be shooting 3 or 4 like I have in the past.
Corn is still standing around here, so things won't pick up on the stand for another 2 weeks. I'm hopeful that I'll have decent action...
iowaPete
Numbers seem the same, here in northeast Iowa (as the past three years). Our numbers decreased drastically when the DNR started selling 3000 extra doe tags per year, 4 to 5 years ago (can not remember when). Those numbers seem to be holding. EHD has been reported in local cattle herds, so you know it's affecting the deer. Still the greatest effect has been the increased tag numbers. I've been asking local farmers who are harvesting and they have been seeing deer, however, NO BIG BUCKS. I can not imagine there is any correlation.
pointing dogs Where are the cattle you talk about having EHD, i didnt know cows were able to be infected by ehd. Here in southern iowa i have not heard of any cows having EHD but have found the deer with it.
Thanks
Mike
I know it hit the domestic bison in the Omaha Indian Tribe (across the river in NE)
I have not heard of any cattle with it-I am a DVM amd am intrested if that is true.
I am a DVM and yes it has been confirmed in my area by ISU diagnostic lab(in cattle). There is a nice article about the disease in cattle (signs and symptoms). Due to confidentiality I will not mention anymore. At least two different farms. If you want PM me for the article info (if I can find it).
does the State have the farm(s)quarantined?
NO, the state does not quarantine the farms.
Not seeing as many deer as we use to over by the Ion acsess. Alot less doe's
As a nonresident hunting Ban Buren county for the first time I don't have any past to go on, but I was expecting to see a lot ore deer. Especially does. I've been here over a week and am averaging seeing 3 or4 does and fawns a day.
My hosts here blame a 2 year drought but more specifically a 6 year January Rifle doe season. In WV we have a 4 day family doe hunt between Christmas and New Years and a lot of shed bucks get killed. I can't imagine how many bucks get killed in Jan. as well as the number of doe.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is the deer population is a lot lower than it could be here, and no where near carrying capacity for the habitat. Again, only based on 10 days of hunting first of November.
Gobbler: it seems to be a combination of drought, disease and LOTS of tags being issued. In the late 1990's and early 2000's I would see.. on average 7 deer per sitting from anyone of my trees. With all the tags that were issued the number has dropped dramatically. I now see... maybe 2-3 per sitting. There were early years when I would ALWAYS see deer and never see NONE. Now I can go out and at times see NO deer in a sitting. Good luck on your hunt in Iowa and enjoy
Most hunters are talking about how slow this season has been to date. This includes people hunting on lands where there is little or no hunting pressure. The number of does killed during the late antlerless season in Van Buren County is not as high as some think because much of the land is owned or leased by people that strictly control hunting pressure and the number of deer killed. I just finished hunting my private property for over one week and saw less than half the number of deer I would normally see. Rut activity was greatly subdued. Not very many chases taking place. Strange season so far.
I enjoyed my hunt. Ended up killing a 3.5 year old 9 point after 2 weeks of hunting. I felt kinda bad cause that is the type of deer that would have been in its prime in a couple more years.
There were a lot of positives, I got to hunt Iowa, it's always fun to hunt a new place. I think the most negative was being forced to buy an 118.00 doe tag in an area where there are not a lot of doe. This farmer dosen't allow Jan for hunting on his 650 acres but has farmers close that will let Amish come in and kill every legal deer. That has to have an effect in that whole area.
I saw so few doe that I would have felt guilty shooting a doe. I saw less than 20 in 2 weeks of hunting.
Thank You for letting me enjoy your state Greg
just returned -sightings were WAY WAY down-a few crops left may have contributed.The general feeling locally is the late rifle season is really decreasing the herd (what the insurance companies and their puppet Governor want despite DNR biologists objections).Combined with EHD their goal is closer than ever if combined with a severe winter.I'll go back late season and the timber I hunt it a deer lot area in late season so I will get a better report.While there a buddy shot a 158 3/4" 10 point so they are still around in places.Zone 4 Red Oak.
I wont shoot a doe
I hope the hunters can limit themselves for the greater good.
Maybe Guys need to start self regulating themselves. 3 bucks a year is a lot to take out for one person.
A good friend of mine (Collins Taxidermy) was telling everyone last yr to knock it off on filling tags that came through his door. A farmer up the rd. from him took out 32 deer off his land and is wondering what happen to the deer herd. I would think Wi. would be a good study on what happens to excessive liberal tags. I personally witness the destruction of the Wi. deer herd around the Ft. McCoy area by the start of the T-Zone, it was the beginning of the end (260 sq mis. of public land), lived there for over 20 yrs. It will take alot of peer pressure to eat the extra tags, if not you will just have to live with al low deer herd like it was back in the 60s; seeing a whitetail was a special day in the field.
leo17: it's NOT the taking of bucks that's lowering the deer numbers. It's all the does that are being harvested. Secondly, I qualify for those three buck tags. In the past three years I have taken two bucks... being selective. Just because a guy can buy three tags it does not mean they shoot three bucks. I have lots of friends that gun hunt and rarely if EVER do the people in the group average one buck per person per year.
Yes, "we must regulate ourselves"
good luck to all, the dog
i certainly agree with way too many does being shot! it really agravates me when i hear of guy's shooting 7-8 does and then just giving them to the hush program. i've had people that get this meat ask me if i want some because they don't like it! i always say no thanks , i take care of my own meat. so i wonder how much of it really gets used? well anyway thats my gripe for the day. in light of that i have seen fAr fewer deer in marion county than i have for several years. which i'm sure makes the insurance companies happy as has already been said. but like i told my boys , if you kill an animal you need to eat it otherwise don't kill it for crying out loud!
Am I missing somethig here How do you get three buck tags in Ia. I was under the imprestion you can bow hunt a buck and shotgun a buck but thats it. or you can bow hunt a buck and muzzle load a buck.
This is from another thread.
Thanks all. The farm get's hunted in all seasons, some harder than others and has been hunted for years. 14 guys the first shotgun season for instance. Deer chewed 55 acres of beans literally to the stub this year and did not miss a single plant! Predation biologist and myself have never seen anything like it. DNR is telling us to shoot 40 does per year for 3 to 4 yrs. Tags are $13 each. Hope this helps with clarifications.
Now what is that going to do to the deer population in that area.
Pat -landowners can get landownertags(nontransferrable) and shotgun hunters can shoot more than 1 buck as long as someone in their hunting party has a valid tag.10 people with tags 1 guy could concievably shoot all 10 as long as the party members are present hunting with them and apply the tag.
Archery tags may be used during archery-only and late muzzleloading season. You can buy one general either sex tag for archery and one for the late season (total of 2 bucks) If you are a resident landowner, you can get a either sex tag good for the land you own (third buck tag). You must specify which season the landowner tag is for.
after spending the last 4 days shotgun hunting on 2500 acres a private leased ground, I will tell you order numbers are way way down. I'm guessing we are down 40 percent from just last year and 60 to 70 percent from 5 years ago. Open the morning heard total of eight shots all day. I have talked to roughly 25 people in other groups and no one is shooting anything. Everyone is afraid to pull the trigger because they're not seeing any deer already
after spending the last 4 days shotgun hunting on 2500 acres a private leased ground, I will tell you order numbers are way way down. I'm guessing we are down 40 percent from just last year and 60 to 70 percent from 5 years ago. Open the morning heard total of eight shots all day. I have talked to roughly 25 people in other groups and no one is shooting anything. Everyone is afraid to pull the trigger because they're not seeing any deer already
Where did the deer go? I am hearing this same report from most areas of the state. A lot of speculation of EHD die-off but in many areas where the deer population appears way off, people are not reporting finding significant numbers of dead deer as would be expected. While the doe harvest may have been too much in many areas of the state, even people hunting large tracts of land where a lot of does were not shot are reporting decreased deer numbers. One theory I have heard is that in areas where a lot of deer were lost due to overharvest of does and/or EHD, deer from managed areas with high populations moved in to repopulate these areas...thus accounting for missing deer on large, managed tracts of land. Interesting theory.
Ollie-a resident can buy 2 either sex tags for archery? (late season and bow season)?
nevermind-you mean a late season MLder tag and it is legal to use a bow to fill it.
shotgun reports from Zone for are the worst in years
zone 4 not zone for.....mi anglish aint sso guud...
If you want to see how dismal this season has been, check out county by county harvest data as of 12-12-2013. Total statewide kill so far is 60,873. Total kill in 2012 season was 115,606, a decline in the deer harvest for seven straight years. They won't come anywhere close to this total kill this year.
https://jc.activeoutdoorsolutions.com/iowadnr/harvestdata/realTimeHarvest.do
I hope our elected officials listen to our biologists this year and reduce the quota. The dnr has wanted to do this the last two years, and Branstad overruled it. Shame on him. Let the folks do their job and manage the herd.
We as hunters have to patrol ourselves and stop pulling the trigger just because the tags are available to us.
Our deer hunting is going downhill and we are at the tipping point of how bad it is going to get. Decision time gentlemen!!
LET THEM WALK unless the freezer is empty or he is going on the wall
The Governor is a puppet of the auto insurance companies-we will have to SELF POLICE.
PLEASE everyone spread the word-make a facebook or twitter posting,email to all etc.
if we get a third year of EHD its over....
Below is directly from the "Trends in Iowa Wildlife Population & Harvest Report" (2012)-
"As deer numbers continue to decline, hunters will need to become more cautious in the number of does they harvest. Hunters can drive deer numbers lower than desired in localized areas even in those counties where deer numbers remain above the goal overall. Conversely, there are areas in some counties that are at goal where deer numbers are still overabundant. Hunters need to work with landowners to find a desirable level of harvest."
In other words, "Please continue to buy as many tags as possible but you probably shouldn't be filling them all because if you do it will be your fault that Iowa's deer population is declining below acceptable levels."
It's a bunch of crap that our state doesn't even listen to the recommendations of the wildlife biologists it hires.
Jeff
I forgot to mention, the report is a rather long read but the portion I quoted can be found on page 17.
late season hunt resulted in many more sightings (lotted up) with a decent # of 1 1/2 year old bucks (saw more than does) so maybe next year will be better.
I saw a lot of deer in the late season and not so many in the archery season. Lots of 2.5 yr old deer seen in late season so they should be around next season with one more year of antler growth.
Like said WE NEED TO POLICE OURSELVES. We need to stop killing doe's left and right. And there are thoughs that shoot 5 or 6 within the family. Im sorry but we can't live on deer or soon than later we'll all be out.
The DNR knows their giving out more tags than are reasonable, but it's their money trough, and their not likely to shut it down. Sadly we have too many hunters who naively belive that if the DNR sells them a tag then it must be OK to fill it.
I have seen way less deer in eastern iowa. I only saw one P&Y buck. I usually see 6 or 8. It is sad indeed. My 14 YO son has been deer less the last 2 years after getting a deer his first 3 years in a row. It is hard to keep the new hunter interested when they don't see any. Without new hunters the DNR will sell less tags. They need to cut back on the doe tags for a few years.
One post mentions to many tags ,another post worries about not selling enough tags do to lower deer population. Hmmm.