By Joe Wilkinson
Iowa Department of Natural Resources
Ice, snow...and catastrophic flooding have marked 2008 as we close the first half of the year. You can’t blame a lot of us for looking a little deeper into the calendar; say to the hunting seasons? Lousy pheasant-raising weather and CRP acres pressed back into crop production mean upland game prospects will be lean. That makes deer hunting the probably bright spot, heading into this fall.
Deer tags have been liberally available in the past few years and this season will offer more of the same. Season dates, special zones and county by county quotas were set recently by the Iowa Natural Resource Commission. Allocation of any sex tags—which allow a hunter to take bucks—essentially will be the same. The goal, of course, is to bring deer populations to acceptable levels statewide. That means harvesting more does—antlerless deer.
“The only major change is an increase of about 11,000 antlerless tags,” confirms Willie Suchy, Department of Natural Resources wildlife research supervisor. “Antlerless tags seem to be working real well. In some counties, almost 75 percent of all deer killed are antlerless, with 60 percent of them does. With that kind of harvest, we’ll get those counties down, as well.”
That means 120,000 county-specific tags are out there for hunters willing to kill antlerless deer. There will be 39 counties with more available this fall and winter. Most of them lie in the three southern tiers; though several northeast counties were bumped up, too. Another 58 counties remain at last year’s quotas.
Across north central and northwest Iowa, 22 counties will—again—offer no antlerless tags. They are among about 40 with deer numbers close to target levels, with another 30 heading in the right direction. “In another year or two, we should be in pretty good shape there,” offers Suchy, noting that road-killed deer dropped about eight percent in 2007 and that 2008 aerial and spotlight surveys under indicate a downturn, too. “That leaves 20-some counties where we really have to concentrate on getting extra hunting pressure,” he said. Those counties are in southern and northeast Iowa primarily; generally home to prime deer habitat and fewer people.
Special hunts--in state or county parks, or in or around cities--remain popular. There are 60 such hunts this fall and winter. The Commission also approved the popular Thanksgiving weekend and late January seasons, for another year.
Of course, any hunter sitting in an October bow stand or posted up on a December shotgun season drive still expects that big buck to wander by. That is why any sex tags remain the basic ‘must have.’ More hunters are taking advantage of the antlerless tags. It might be just one, to use during a party hunt or it could be a handful during the late season as a hunter takes advantage of the extra dates. With seasons stretching over four months, and with only one or two bucks allowed, depending on your choice of seasons, we are starting to get the hint. “Our hunters are really adapting to the quality deer management philosophy,” underscores Suchy. “You have to kill does and pass up the little bucks to keep the herd from growing. You can still have a great time.”
Details of the seasons and regulations; including adjustments in the blaze orange requirement for ground blinds, youth season regulations and landowner eligibility will be spelled out in the deer regulations booklets available on-line or at license outlets and DNR offices later this summer.
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Iowa Outdoors
http://www.iowaoutdoors.org/article.php/20080701130452287