Funny how the non residents always get blamed. I’d bet NRs kill only a fraction of the total deer harvest per year and an even smaller percentage of trophy bucks in Iowa or any other state for that matter. Residents have no issues selling land to NRs for inflated prices. Residents feel comfortable leasing land to NRs at nose bleed rates. The counties love the taxes these NR landowners pay each year. The DNR has become dependent on all the high priced NR licenses and fees that NR hunters apply for each year. The hotels and restaurants greedily welcome the NR hunters who come and stay a week and dine in their establishments. After waiting 4 or 5 years to draw an archery tag, it would take 30 years to draw 6 tags. Do you really think an individual NR killing 5 or 6 bucks over a 30 year period is what has caused the decline of buck age structure in Iowa since 2008-2010 ? Give me a break. Some guys aren’t looking at this issue with an open mind. For every NR who abused the party hunting rule to take a buck while in Iowa hunting on a doe tag, there’s dozens of residents who shoot anything that moves on deer drives and settle up tagging deer when the drive is over. I’ve hunted all over the country for white tails and I assure you, when ya want to look for causes of deer decline, look no further than the low life element of resident hunters. Notice I did not claim all residents hunters. There’s always that element in any state.
Of the 6000 NRs allowed to hunt Iowa each year, only a small portion of those are landowners in the state. See how the idea of blaming NR land owners is flawed. I can guarantee you that way more of my out of state hunts have been screwed up by neighboring residents than NRs. It’s a numbers game….theres way more resident hunters ! When any issue involves emotion, there always the tendency to come up with a scape goat to blame. When it comes to the decline of deer hunting, blaming NRs is always low hanging fruit.
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