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Deer population

JNRBRONC said:
I've seen very few road kill this year. I drove from IC to Moline and back midweek Nov 13, maybe saw 1 the whole round trip. Seems far fewer than years past.
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Going by what you see on the road is misleading... The carcasses can be picked up by the time you pass by.. I go by the paper and I've seen to much for comfort in the paper.. Also, some deer don't go down right away and run off into the timber or available cover..

There are more people on the road then there ever has been.. You have to factor in those deer who fall victim to vehicles..
 
camo658 said:
Going by what you see on the road is misleading... The carcasses can be picked up by the time you pass by..
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I didn't claim it was a hard number, just that this year's roadkill seems less than previous years in a relative sense. I don't think the county workers/DOT are picking them up faster this year and I'm just not seeing as many hit as years past.
 
JNRBRONC said:
I didn't claim it was a hard number, just that this year's roadkill seems less than previous years in a relative sense. I don't think the county workers/DOT are picking them up faster this year and I'm just not seeing as many hit as years past.
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Yeah, I haven't seen to many either.. Of course, I haven't been looking too closely when trekking up to Iowa city..
 
I drove from Iowa city to Des Moines last week. 3 roadkill deer, one was missing its head. Only seen maybe 10 deer in the fields the entire trip. That trip 5 years ago that time of day I would have seen 100.

Maybe we need one of these whitetail organizations to step up and buy all the doe tags in the low regions if the governor and dnr don't figure it out. Kind of counteract the farm bureau lobby money.

The war on Does has to end in several counties. Those of you that are seeing lots of them are probably on farms with lots of food plots that draw the deer off of other properties. Especially in late season.
 
I assure you the DNR are doing what they can. They have proposed lower deer quotas for at least the past 2 years and the governor only does what his biggest backer (farm bureau) says. This is why I say you should stop bickering with each other and contact the governor with all your concerns.
 
The road kill count is down big time. I drive 600-800 miles each week. Basically from iowa city up to waverly or down to washington or quad cities. Typically I can tell when it is rocking and rolling rut wise because it is like a switch goes off. One morning you drive to work and there will be a dozen bucks laying dead at first light from iowa city to waterloo.

I don't see hardly any road kills this year. One of my customer's brother inlaw is an insurance rep for I believe cedar county and he said he count on a minimum of 250 deer collision claims per year. This year he has only had 4 as of two weeks ago when I talked to my customer.

My taxidermist has only got in 3 deer so far this year and my other taxidermist has less than a dozen.
 
bradley said:
The Iowa DNR says harvest numbers are right on track with last years.Is this true or do they just claim that so we don't complain about the deer numbers or to make it look like there is just as many deer?
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I believe we are right on track. I used to keep some data. The last data I had was in 2010 and on the last day of bow season before gun which was December 3rd we are currently 5100 deer shy of 2010 right now. I am sure another 1000 will probably die between now and shotgun season.
 
Liv4Rut said:
I believe we are right on track. I used to keep some data. The last data I had was in 2010 and on the last day of bow season before gun which was December 3rd we are currently 5100 deer shy of 2010 right now. I am sure another 1000 will probably die between now and shotgun season.
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That's better than Missouri, the November gun season just ended with 50,000 less killed than last year
 
I would bet a good sum of cash money that a lot of people on here think there are no deer but they are much better in number than the land of snow and cold that I hang my hat. A place where winter konks out huge numbers each year.
 
I think what I am going to do next year is rally up all the PETA folks in Iowa and persuade them all to go out and buy doe tags, call them in and cut them up and throw them in the trash. You know so those mean hunters cannot kill any deer.

Population rebound on their dime. That would be great.

Peta is happy as they think they are saving deer.

Hunters are happy as the population will start to grow.

Governor is happy because he is selling tags.

Farm Bureau is happy because they think a lot of deer are dying.
 
SaskGuy said:
I would bet a good sum of cash money that a lot of people on here think there are no deer but they are much better in number than the land of snow and cold that I hang my hat. A place where winter konks out huge numbers each year.
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Kaare, if we do not see 30 deer a sit with at least two shooters, we are not happy. :way: Just kidding of course but you are right I am sure. I would say during the rut I would expect to see anywhere from 5-15 if the bucks are crusing good in an all day sit.
 
Liv4Rut said:
Kaare, if we do not see 30 deer a sit with at least two shooters, we are not happy. :way: Just kidding of course but you are right I am sure. I would say during the rut I would expect to see anywhere from 5-15 if the bucks are crusing good in an all day sit.
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Man, I'm happy with my year so far. With spending 327 hours in the stand I have only seen 3 shooters and maybe 5 other young bucks.. I would be going crazy to see that many bucks in a day. My high is 4. People are just greedy nowadays. They think their farms have to be like the farms on the television.
 
When I first started hunting if you SAW a deer in one week of hunting you were doing ok. Would also like to point out that many farmers are clearing habitat to make room for cattle or so they don't have to make a turn around a draw in the tractor, so they wipe out the trees, tile it and plant it. I am in the process of loosing 40 acres of great timber/brush to a total removal...for pasture. Torques me off.
 
slice and dice said:
When I first started hunting if you SAW a deer in one week of hunting you were doing ok. Would also like to point out that many farmers are clearing habitat to make room for cattle or so they don't have to make a turn around a draw in the tractor, so they wipe out the trees, tile it and plant it. I am in the process of loosing 40 acres of great timber/brush to a total removal...for pasture. Torques me off.
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I understand what you are going through.

4 of my hunting spots have lost trees over two years..

Two due to Tornado.. Two (both are around the area where I hunt) to Tree removal for $$$...
 
I think we have a mix of people on here. The guys that have been hunting a while have seen how good Iowa can be. And on the flip side, we have younger guys that are new to hunting and don't really have enough experience and time to truly compare the numbers to. No offense to anyone in particular, but on a whole the numbers have been trending down and I truly believe the only reason they aren't lower is because guys have been working harder for them. I also believe that with the current landowners clearing fence line to fence line, that the deer have been easier to get at.....less areas to disperse and evade the big groups... Lots more to say but I will stop. We r going down a slippery slope. Even the guys that hunt the bigtime deer counties r seeing it.
 
Bowman D said:
I think we have a mix of people on here. The guys that have been hunting a while have seen how good Iowa can be. And on the flip side, we have younger guys that are new to hunting and don't really have enough experience and time to truly compare the numbers to. No offense to anyone in particular, but on a whole the numbers have been trending down and I truly believe the only reason they aren't lower is because guys have been working harder for them. I also believe that with the current landowners clearing fence line to fence line, that the deer have been easier to get at.....less areas to disperse and evade the big groups... Lots more to say but I will stop. We r going down a slippery slope. Even the guys that hunt the bigtime deer counties r seeing it.
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Exactly.. I agree with a lot of what you wrote. Same as others in this thread..

Less land + increase demand = Not pretty..
 
Deer populations

Thanks to whoever posted county kill stats.Wonder what that looked like 4-5 years ago? What i'm wondering is how or I guess why would you shoot a shed buck with a bow? There are a few turned in and it blows my mind someone would kill a shed buck.Just don't understand
 
Non-typ. said:
No difference than shooting a button buck with a bow.
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Except you don't have as much time invested in a button buck, as a 5 year old that's wore out from rut and drops by the end of December. It takes a lot to get them that old, to only be gunned down as a late antlerless and donated to Hush:mad:
 
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