I heard a relevant anecdote on podcast the other day. A guy that has hunted the Amana Colonies ground, which I believe is over 20,000 acres, said they made it one buck per hunter about 20 years ago. He said there used to be a number over 170 taken every season prior to one buck. He believes it's because of high grading. With one tag, guys now wait until a good one shows up, which is often a 3 or 4 years old with potential, and let the "managment" bucks walk. Back in the day they would take a management buck knowing they could still hunt. Interesting......
This is exactly why we shouldn’t decrease buck tags available. He is 100% correct.
The herd is and has been being high graded for 20 years driven by the big buck craze. That will only worsen going to a one buck State because nobody will want to burn their only buck tag on a cull.
It has always been my belief that there is typically one stud genetic buck in each age class for every 1000 acres give or take in southern Iowa. By that I mean a buck that has the potential to break 180” by age five or six. Problem is if you own less than 1000 acres it is hard to keep any particular buck on your property during the entire hunting season.
For example, let’s say you and your kid hunt on a 200 acre parcel that you own and manage and there are five parcels of 200 acres including yours making up a 1000 acre block. Each parcel has 2 guys hunting on them. That is 10 guys total hunting the 1000 acre block. Let’s say you got a 2 1/2 year old that blew into a stud 160” at 3 1/2 year old. Let’s say that stud has to make it for 2 full seasons (3 1/2 & 4 1/2) to reach his full potential and see his fifth birthday.
Even if those guys only got one buck tag per year the bucks chances of making it to his fifth birthday are slim at best because of box blinds and food plots. I would say his odds are even better to survive if each guy got two or three buck tags. This is because most guys are more willing to take an old lower scoring buck if they know they can get another tag and still hunt for their target buck. Cull bucks pushing young stud bucks off to neighboring properties to be shot happens all the time. If your stud 3 1/2 year old 160” keeps getting push from piece to piece to piece by bully culls he won’t set up a small home range and his odds of surviving go down drastically.
You have to be able to take out cull bucks to get your stud buck to shrink his home range and stay put. Guys will not shoot culls when they have a target buck they are after without the potential for a second tag. They will eat that tag before they shoot a cull which just leads to cull bucks living longer and breeding more than your better genetic bucks and ultimately poor genetics being passed on. Ultimately, high grading the herd.
So unless you can buy 1000 acres or get all your neighbors in your 1000 acre block on board to pass certain bucks and take culls your chances of shooting 180’s consistently or at all in any 1000 acre block come down more to luck than management. That is just the facts. As disappointing as it is you need to realize what you are up against.
I would even say giving out 3 buck tags to every hunter would lead to more top end bucks being killed. Why do I say that? The reasons listed above. All you have to do is look back to our glory days 2000-2005 the buck to doe ratio was probably 1 buck to 7-10 does in most areas. More does lead to less competition and smaller home ranges for bucks. As our buck to doe ratio has decreased to closer to 1:3 means more competition and bucks traveling further during the rut. As a bucks home range increases his chance of seeing his fifth birthday decrease to almost zero if he has good head gear.
FB and the insurance lobby won’t allow us to get the population back to 2005 levels so we have to do what we can to increase the population as best we can. We also have to be able to remove cull bucks by having multiple buck tags if you want to see high end bucks make it to 5 1/2 and prevent high grading Iowa even more.
If you want to keep Iowa great do not push for Iowa to go to a one buck State. It will do the exact opposite of what you think it will. Just like they saw happen in the 20,000 acre Amana Colonies.
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