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How's the deer hunting in Van Buren county?

M

meatcleaver

meatcleaver
I have a chance to get on a farm lease in the southwestern part of Van Buren county Iowa. I'm wanting to learn how big the deer population is and my chances of seeing some real nice deer during the first shotgun season.Any info would be appreciated
 
My advice is you better take it. Remember this is Iowa there are nice deer in all four corners and in between. Good luck
 
Normally, Van Buren County is one of the very best counties in Iowa for quality deer hunting. However, really bad EHD in two consecutive summers a few years back hit this area particularly hard. So even though we are now several years past that and things are rebounding, I think most people would say that it is still not as stellar as it once was. That being said, it still can be very good, it really will just come down to the pressure on that particular farm, and surrounding properties, and whether is was in an "EHD Hot Zone" or not.
 
Still rebounding from EHD. I would say the older age class bucks are about 50% of what they were a few years ago.
 
Diggdug said:
Still rebounding from EHD. I would say the older age class bucks are about 50% of what they were a few years ago.
Click to expand...

FWIW, that report ^^ is very consistent with the things I have also heard from a variety of hunters and very knowledgeable people in that area.
 
I’ve owned land in VB....
Neighbors will be key. Find a rare group that keeps pressure low & has big block of land - common sense it’ll be good.
Get into blocks with lots of small landowners & good genetic up & comers slammed- not great. A lot of the county has this situation.
But - pockets of large land owners who manAge for balanced age groups, deer #’s & protect younger good gen bucks-good hunting. Ehd will rebound if it hasn’t already. Gonna be neighbor dependent so do ur homework!
 
Without giving anything away.... Few questions... How big is the lease? How many timbered or cover acres? Big section and if you don't know.... You need to figure out if you've got a whole bunch of small neighbors next to you with timber/cover you share. This will reveal a good bit. If you have a block that contains a lot of holding power and cover - the next issue is: how has it been managed in the past? There's always that chance it's been blown to piss & could take a couple years to rebound. Doubtful but possible. Maybe it's been lightly hunted or managed extremely well too - something you need to see if you can dig up info & facts on. Takes some time & "investigation". If you have awesome neighbors or a large & great managing neighbor- that may be a non-issue. man, I keep going back to neighbors. Just go into this as educated as possible with history, neighbors, etc. If you go in BLIND, I'd have back-up plans in case the farm isn't good.
One thing I can say for sure.... there's no "BLANKET ANSWER" for a whole county. Find me "good or bad counties" in iowa and I'll find both: crap ground and amazing hunting in either of those counties.
 
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