Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

HUNTERS PER SQUARE MILE OF TIMBER & HABITAT ACRE BY STATE…

Windlooker said:
It doesn’t pass the smell test. I’ve been hunting my 2 mile square block in zone 5 for 23 years. My block is 1500 acres and I have access to another 600 ac to the west. No way are numbers that high. I’m retired and spend nearly the entire deer season in camp. I don’t see it. Sorry to argue but my everyday observations don’t support those numbers. As I asked previously what’s the goal? Where’s this going ?
Click to expand...
So- take the 640 acres surrounding your farm (size of your farm or where u hunt is irrelevant). Think of all your neighbors WITH SOME TIMBER…. In a 640 area….. how many deer hunters would u guess hunt it through out our 4+ month long season that has 7 deer seasons?
I’m in great area and I can’t come up with any less than about 12-15 on the lightest. Go to some stuff closer to cities I have or had…. 20-30 is very common. Or even the rural areas with youth, bow, shotgun & ML groups/guys.

My goal?!?! To understand the data. To have some facts & references to compare states. To understand. To become wiser. To be open minded & let the facts & data lead me to the truth. All I wanted to find out “what’s the facts”? I had no idea going into this. & there was no where I could get these answers until the data & let it play out.
 
booneriverbucks said:
The numbers are in square miles of forest!! Most of us have never even seen a square mile of forest in the state! Very few even exist. The math is correct! If you actually think about 640 acres of pure timber it really isn’t that hard to think that 37+ people set foot on part of it throughout the season. Yes, the perception and consequences are different than other states where they are crammed in to the same gun season but we do need to realize how unique/fragile deer hunting is here.
Click to expand...
I agree with that. But ur missing the huge & main point!!!!!…. -all states have this dynamic!!!!!
Most of N Missouri, all of IL, all of IN, Most of Ohio, bottom half of: WI, MN & MI. Bottom half’s of all 3 of those states are way more MIXED idea habitat than we have in our whole state!! There’s no states in Midwest without big mixes of ag & timber. & all have more than we do! (Other than maybe west of us which has prairies & huge pasture lands)! Every state has this mix & way more…. BUT… our “void area” is “OPEN NOTHING”. No deer, nothing!! (Except tiny parts where rivers are or tiny wood lots of homes. It’s wide open vacant of wildlife!!!!), If u want to give other states a “void area” - say: MI, MN, WI, MO, KY, OH, etc….. it’s huge expanses of: FORESTS!!!!! We don’t have that!!!!!!!
The northern 4 counties of MO alone has more mixed habitat & deer than the whole state of iowa!!! Same with bottom half’s of any state like MI, MN & WI. or Illinois, on & on. “Mixed habitat” is not unique to iowa. How little forest or timber we have is!!!!!!!
 
Sorry for the cunfusion! I am totally agreeing with you! Was attempting to explain why it doesn’t seem like we have 37 hunters per square mile of habitat . We have timber and corn and beans… in general.. very little in between! Way different than Kansas, Nebraska etc.
 
booneriverbucks said:
Sorry for the cunfusion! I am totally agreeing with you! Was attempting to explain why it doesn’t seem like we have 37 hunters per square mile of habitat . We have timber and corn and beans. In general.. very little in between! Way different than Kansas, Nebraska etc.
Click to expand...
Ahh…. Lost in translation of typing! ;) :). I was like “this isn’t that complex…… but- I’ll still clarify!” Ha!
I’m all over in ks in NE or have been in past. It’s wild how many “15,000 acre chunks” of vast expanses are out there. Same with SD. Like- 5,000-20,000 acre tracts are reasonably common. Prairies, huge pastures, etc. The biggest contiguous privately held farm in the state of iowa….. 4.300 acres. That’s #1!!!!! 4,300 acres in most these other states- they have countless tracts far bigger
Heck - even in MI- I went to a place in N LP that was 24,000. Amazing. U imagine that in iowa?!?! Wild. Biggest farm in KS sold last year…. It was between 42,000 & 44,000 acres (I forget exact). I actually wish we had tracts like that or some big forested area of our state with vast forest.

Think of this one…. Saskatchewan has countless millions of acres of forest. & they have decent deer #’s & “good hunting” on top of their ag/forest region which is amazing. I’d GUESS…. When things are good in iowa…. We have more B&c bucks than all of Saskatchewan. Or close. With a tiny sliver of the area.
Saskatchewan has…. 131,000 square miles of forest (& was less people density) vs 2.8m in iowa. Wow. They actually have some awesome ag & mixed ground there. Same with Alberta and Manitoba!!
 
Haha! I had to reread what a wrote a few times just to double check! Sure thought I was emphasizing your point! Got it! Same page! Same page! The numbers actually don’t really shock me. When I think of individual areas that contain 640 acres of timber there is no doubt that 30+ hunters step foot on part of it throughout the year. In some areas of the state that might be a stretch of river bottom that goes on for miles!
 
booneriverbucks said:
Haha! I had to reread what a wrote a few times just to double check! Sure thought I was emphasizing your point! Got it! Same page! Same page! The numbers actually don’t really shock me. When I think of individual areas that contain 640 acres of timber there is no doubt that 30+ hunters step foot on part of it throughout the year. In some areas of the state that might be a stretch of river bottom that goes on for miles!
Click to expand...
Got up at 4:45 (for 4 straight weeks now) I just walked 9.2 miles & im covered in tree paint. We driving from Taylor co back to my farm to work on equipment. My brain might not be top performance right now. :)
IMG_6186.jpeg
 
Sligh1 said:
Ahh…. Lost in translation of typing! ;) :). I was like “this isn’t that complex…… but- I’ll still clarify!” Ha!
I’m all over in ks in NE or have been in past. It’s wild how many “15,000 acre chunks” of vast expanses are out there. Same with SD. Like- 5,000-20,000 acre tracts are reasonably common. Prairies, huge pastures, etc. The biggest contiguous privately held farm in the state of iowa….. 4.300 acres. That’s #1!!!!! 4,300 acres in most these other states- they have countless tracts far bigger
Heck - even in MI- I went to a place in N LP that was 24,000. Amazing. U imagine that in iowa?!?! Wild. Biggest farm in KS sold last year…. It was between 42,000 & 44,000 acres (I forget exact). I actually wish we had tracts like that or some big forested area of our state with vast forest.

Think of this one…. Saskatchewan has countless millions of acres of forest. & they have decent deer #’s & “good hunting” on top of their ag/forest region which is amazing. I’d GUESS…. When things are good in iowa…. We have more B&c bucks than all of Saskatchewan. Or close. With a tiny sliver of the area.
Saskatchewan has…. 131,000 square miles of forest (& was less people density) vs 2.8m in iowa. Wow. They actually have some awesome ag & mixed ground there. Same with Alberta and Manitoba!!
Click to expand...
It’s crazy! I’ve gone hunting in the UP back when it was better than it is now but not the northern LP. Were a few fairly large tracts there too. Know plenty of large landowners in Neb, KS and the dakotas too. (Hasn’t done me much good deer wise.. all leased out to outfitters). Tags/seasons never fit my schedule either… or was too young and poor ;). Have killed the crap out of pheasants and sharp tails on those farms in the Dakotas tho. Amazing pieces of land. Some of the biggest bucks whether it’s whitetails or mulies that I’ve seen have been in pretty much un talked about places in North Dakota. Have been to ranches where the owner had a house full of 200+ inch deer that nobody had ever heard of. They kinda like to keep it that way too! Know a few guys with booner bow kills that I’ve never even heard talk about shooting bows too! Won’t get into that. Bottom line.. We have very little in this state that it is untouched/lightly hunted. There are no secrets here anymore! Very few bucks that aren’t known by everyone within a mile by the time they are 3 or 4. Crazy how even tho we could still be better we still somewhat compete in the trophy world. I honestly think our regs/culture are all we can thank for it. That is why I’m a little apprehensive of proposed large changes to our regs. Just not sure of the consequences yet.. not saying I could never accept change. Just not quite ready to risk something new if it ends up being worse than what we currently have.
 
Last edited:
The fragility of our deer herd/ seasons etc. kinda goes back to why I was questioning hunter numbers the other day. Not saying I’m for or against floating LOT tags, party hunting, straight walls etc. Just questioning if we can accurately judge some of the effects of the recent changes. Has hunter participation during the shotgun seasons gone up due to floating LOT and increased antlerless tags etc. ? Same with the muzzleloader seasons. Does people buying antlerless tags and party hunting on those tags affect overall pressure and the number of bucks killed ? If so, how much? How many people are really participating in each season? What little things can we look at or do we even have the data to make a good guess? We definitely have a unique state when it comes to regs, traditions and habitat.
 
Last edited:
Sligh1 said:
See- everyone in every region is shocked by this anywhere in the country BECAUSE: they see it through their lense of what they see in their tiny pocket or backyard. Seriously. MI guys will say “we have millions of hunters”…. But when you get to the UP for example or even regions in N mi - it’s super light for pressure.
On the other hand…. You get to southern iowa & most guys are like “dude, there’s more hunters than ever!!!! Every farm is hunted & hunted hard. Public is infested”.
N MN & N WI might seem like “hardly any hunters”. Go to southern parts “guys all over!!!!”
Iowa is packed guys. I don’t know where u guys are hunting in these areas without hunters. Heck, I have a 400 acre block east of me that literally gets 40+ hunters in there a year. Public by me, a 100 acre chunk, triple digit different people in there. Countless 100-200 acre chunks with multiple gun groups of 10-20 guys pushing it multiple seasons + different bow hunters & ML hunters.

& guys in iowa…. Go look at how much habitat these other states have….. it’s obscene!!!! Like, some states have literally, 8 times the amount of timber, 5x the deer & their hunter numbers might be triple what ours are. Ya- over the whole state, averaged out, they have less hunters!!!
Big expanses of “all corn & beans” in iowa… there is no deer guys. Like 0 or close to it. U have to have some form on timber or brush or marsh or CRP. & there’s huuuuuggggeee swaths, multiple counties, with wide open NOTHING except the rivers in those counties. Very few deer hunters or even deer to hunt. Most the deer hunters up there flock to the river areas or drive to the little timbered area.

Yes, this data is right. Or a darn good representation of a whole state. Every state has regions “with hardly any hunters” - iowa included!!!! Including Northern parts of WI, MN & MI or vast expanses in KS. Or even the mainly tillable regions in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc. Only iowa can claim to have: least amount of habitat, least amount of deer, least public & yes, for the little habitat we have, it does equate to the most hunters.

***I actually ran the math on one of my farms - which some folks who know the scoop might say “super light pressure”. It still comes out to like 12 deer hunters per sq mile in there between all the seasons.

If this is confusing at all…. Just look at the basics…. How much timber a state has & how many deer hunters. Just look at those raw basics

View attachment 131048
Click to expand...
Definitely the guys saying Iowa doesn't have high hunting pressure don't get out much. I know Southern Iowa and the public gets hammered there. Dozens and dozens go through just a couple hundred acres near me. I have security camera that covers the road and proves it. It's a constant highway from Oct to mid January. That doesn't even touch on the hard to come by private access that's also hammered in many areas.
 
Windlooker said:
Basic searches based on type of habitat put the numbers between 2.7 and 11. Those numbers seem logical. How is 37 being found. If 12 guys show up and drive my neighbors piece for 40 minutes in shotgun season does that count towards the total?? The addition, subtraction or non consideration of variables dictate data. Too easy to skew.
Click to expand...
Just getting to reading this. Yes, it should count. I used to hunt in those groups decades ago. Farmers loved me. We could literally go into a small block of timber and kill every single deer in it. I'm not saying we did it every time, but once every couple years we would do it.

Farmers that hated deer would stand and watch. They threatened us with no more hunting rights if we passed deer, and I believed them. Some of them even called us to hunt after kicking off a group of "trophy hunters."

At that time, there were so many deer, many of us that loved deer hunting felt like the population needed substantially reduced due to car vehicle accidents and other stuff that impacted us personally, not just farmers. I used to drive through the area where I live on my way to and from work. It was usually during peak movement times. I hit an absurd number of deer with my car going 10 mph UNDER the speed limit. Now, I can drive those same roads, and I don't even remember the last time I had to slow down for a deer.

A lot of shotgun groups still hunt like this. One place where my kids and I hunt has two shotgun groups that hunt. In the past we had seen around 30 deer give or take on that piece. It seemed like about 15-17 this year, so we didn't shoot any does. The two shotgun groups went through and shot 9 deer. On an extremely cold evening hunt we saw 6 deer. Two years ago that number would have been 20+ in the same field.

In passed years we were killing 10-15 does and seeing the same number of deer every year. The shotgun groups is not consistently this good. They usually get 1-3 deer, but something this year caused that number to be a lot higher even with around half the number of deer using the property.

A little bit of gun pressure with deer drives makes a huge difference in the number of deer. Especially if they get lucky.
 
Any who doesn't think the straight wall semi auto guns made a difference is kidding themselves!! Huge difference when 10 guys with 12 gauge slug throwers vrs 10 shot semi auto ar 15s shooting basically flat to 200 plus yrds makes a huge difference! The groups now can severely reduce populations in areas of smaller wood lot cover if the don't be selective in what there all killing!!

Sent from my SM-S936U using Tapatalk
 
booneriverbucks said:
The fragility of our deer herd/ seasons etc. kinda goes back to why I was questioning hunter numbers the other day. Not saying I’m for or against floating LOT tags, party hunting, straight walls etc. Just questioning if we can accurately judge some of the effects of the recent changes. Has hunter participation during the shotgun seasons gone up due to floating LOT and increased antlerless tags etc. ? Same with the muzzleloader seasons. Does people buying antlerless tags and party hunting on those tags affect overall pressure and the number of bucks killed ? If so, how much? How many people are really participating in each season? What little things can we look at or do we even have the data to make a good guess? We definitely have a unique state when it comes to regs, traditions and habitat.
Click to expand...
You are 100% correct on the increase in pressure from the party hunting and antlerless tag loophole. I haven't party hunted since my kids started hunting, but before that me and everyone else in my shotgun group that wasn't a one weekend a year deer hunter would use the loophole you described. It honestly seemed like there were more mature bucks back then and it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Most of the guys that only hunted 2 days a year back then had a bird gun they never practiced with and couldn't hit a barn from the inside. Yes, the rest of us filled their either sex tags and then went and killed another buck during ML season. There were years I shot multiple mature bucks on deer drives in the same day. Even though I'm not out there to see it, I would imagine there's still plenty of it that goes on to this day.

Most groups have one guy that can't miss. If we are looking for pie in the sky laws to put trophy bucks everywhere, if he shoots only one buck total, then 4 or 5 a year live in the areas that group hunts. The rest of the people in the group back 10 years ago would never hit a big buck unless it was standing broadside at under 20 yards. "The guy" would kill multiple mature bucks within seconds sometimes. I'm not sure how the tech of straight walls and scopes has changed this, but probably quite a bit. "The guy" probably misses less and the other people probably hit more, so maybe less skewed than in shotgun only years.
There is a lot of talk on here right now about changing regulations to make trophy hunting better. I hunted in several groups in Southern Iowa pretty much across the entire south band of the state. The reason is because bending the rules was so prevalent I didn't want to stay. I'm not talking about using legal loopholes either. We finally formed our own group.

I think the party hunting thing is so entrenched, it will be a nightmare to get people to follow a law that eliminates it. It seems somewhat difficult to enforce. Sure, there are a ton of us that won't break the law. Based on my experience in multiple groups over the 2 decades the split is more 50/50 than it is 99/1 if that law is hard to enforce. Maybe things have gotten better in the last 10 years while I haven't been party hunting.
 
Dennis said:
You are 100% correct on the increase in pressure from the party hunting and antlerless tag loophole. I haven't party hunted since my kids started hunting, but before that me and everyone else in my shotgun group that wasn't a one weekend a year deer hunter would use the loophole you described. It honestly seemed like there were more mature bucks back then and it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Most of the guys that only hunted 2 days a year back then had a bird gun they never practiced with and couldn't hit a barn from the inside. Yes, the rest of us filled their either sex tags and then went and killed another buck during ML season. There were years I shot multiple mature bucks on deer drives in the same day. Even though I'm not out there to see it, I would imagine there's still plenty of it that goes on to this day.

Most groups have one guy that can't miss. If we are looking for pie in the sky laws to put trophy bucks everywhere, if he shoots only one buck total, then 4 or 5 a year live in the areas that group hunts. The rest of the people in the group back 10 years ago would never hit a big buck unless it was standing broadside at under 20 yards. "The guy" would kill multiple mature bucks within seconds sometimes. I'm not sure how the tech of straight walls and scopes has changed this, but probably quite a bit. "The guy" probably misses less and the other people probably hit more, so maybe less skewed than in shotgun only years.
There is a lot of talk on here right now about changing regulations to make trophy hunting better. I hunted in several groups in Southern Iowa pretty much across the entire south band of the state. The reason is because bending the rules was so prevalent I didn't want to stay. I'm not talking about using legal loopholes either. We finally formed our own group.

I think the party hunting thing is so entrenched, it will be a nightmare to get people to follow a law that eliminates it. It seems somewhat difficult to enforce. Sure, there are a ton of us that won't break the law. Based on my experience in multiple groups over the 2 decades the split is more 50/50 than it is 99/1 if that law is hard to enforce. Maybe things have gotten better in the last 10 years while I haven't been party hunting.
Click to expand...
The problem is, here, the north country of Iowa, all of the groups got tired of "fighting" with each other. So now there is a group who hunts 1st season, 2nd season, AND they party hunt late muzzy. They kill deer during late muzzy, then they are "coyote" hunting. Its gotten ugly that everyone uses every single dang loophole to kill a deer, and as Skip usually says, we have gotten all of the advantages, and the deer have gotten zero... We just keep stacking it against them but yet everyone complains less deer and less bucks..well yeah, you think..
 
Dennis said:
You are 100% correct on the increase in pressure from the party hunting and antlerless tag loophole. I haven't party hunted since my kids started hunting, but before that me and everyone else in my shotgun group that wasn't a one weekend a year deer hunter would use the loophole you described. It honestly seemed like there were more mature bucks back then and it didn't seem like that big of a deal.

Most of the guys that only hunted 2 days a year back then had a bird gun they never practiced with and couldn't hit a barn from the inside. Yes, the rest of us filled their either sex tags and then went and killed another buck during ML season. There were years I shot multiple mature bucks on deer drives in the same day. Even though I'm not out there to see it, I would imagine there's still plenty of it that goes on to this day.

Most groups have one guy that can't miss. If we are looking for pie in the sky laws to put trophy bucks everywhere, if he shoots only one buck total, then 4 or 5 a year live in the areas that group hunts. The rest of the people in the group back 10 years ago would never hit a big buck unless it was standing broadside at under 20 yards. "The guy" would kill multiple mature bucks within seconds sometimes. I'm not sure how the tech of straight walls and scopes has changed this, but probably quite a bit. "The guy" probably misses less and the other people probably hit more, so maybe less skewed than in shotgun only years.
There is a lot of talk on here right now about changing regulations to make trophy hunting better. I hunted in several groups in Southern Iowa pretty much across the entire south band of the state. The reason is because bending the rules was so prevalent I didn't want to stay. I'm not talking about using legal loopholes either. We finally formed our own group.

I think the party hunting thing is so entrenched, it will be a nightmare to get people to follow a law that eliminates it. It seems somewhat difficult to enforce. Sure, there are a ton of us that won't break the law. Based on my experience in multiple groups over the 2 decades the split is more 50/50 than it is 99/1 if that law is hard to enforce. Maybe things have gotten better in the last 10 years while I haven't been party hunting.
Click to expand...
When party hunted started things were different. Most guys only had a buck tag.. then it was an anysex tag.. then it was an anysex tag and antlerless tags and landowner tags, dep tags etc.. lots of changes, same regs. I have absolutely zero stomach for screwing up traditions some in the state love. I don’t want our November bowhunting screwed up so it would be extremely hypocritical of me to suggest large changes to basic principles of other seasons. There are a few differences tho between what was originally allowed and what is going on now and I do think there is a chance that stuff could be looked at. In order to do that I think we all should be somewhat prepared or accepting to changes in the seasons we like too.. it’s all going to be very hard to sell.. Tough! I think our time is better spent uniting on things most agree on like antlerless limits and habitat
 
newfarmer said:
The problem is, here, the north country of Iowa, all of the groups got tired of "fighting" with each other. So now there is a group who hunts 1st season, 2nd season, AND they party hunt late muzzy. They kill deer during late muzzy, then they are "coyote" hunting. Its gotten ugly that everyone uses every single dang loophole to kill a deer, and as Skip usually says, we have gotten all of the advantages, and the deer have gotten zero... We just keep stacking it against them but yet everyone complains less deer and less bucks..well yeah, you think..
Click to expand...
I agree we need to lay off the deer. Even in the counties with the highest deer densities in the state you can easily see the pockets where there is party hunting vs not. There is a huge difference in local deer populations from one section to the next. We only killed one doe in our normal hunting area this year because there were very few deer. We normally kill double digits and see the same number of deer year after year. We did kill a couple does in an area that hasn't been hunted in a long time. It had multiple family groups with 6 and 7 does each. Based on what landowners were saying, there were no deer hunters in the area for as long as they can remember.
 
One change that I think would help considerably is combining/requiring hunters to use the “antlerless” tags the same season as their anysex. If you want to use antlerless tags during a shotgun season, you must purchase an any sex statewide first. Pick one firearm season like it used to be. The loophole allowing us to hunt shotgun and late muzzy both has definitely been detrimental, no way it couldn’t have been. Guys basically had 4wks of firearm season with almost endless tags in areas.

With 1/3 or more of the counties stopping antlerless sales, those guys are pretty much back to the old standard of choose 1 firearm season and go. That will help, albeit late, but is it fair that the other half of the state still gets 2 seasons.

The amount of guys that have shot 3+ bucks going archery/SG antlerless/late MZ probably hasn’t even been considered. Throw all of the antlerless tags available those three seasons in the mix and then consider the affect on populations. While I think the HUSH Program is beneficial, it justifies a slaughter for some.
 
There’s always a group that fights changes ! In Minnesota we have a few guys, not many, fighting to keep the walleye limit at 6 fish per day ?

The DNR wants to drop it to 4…which makes total sense . Three would be plenty !

With all the technology changes, huge mobile fish houses, this limit is ridiculously high ?

I’ve always said let’s give the deer or in this case walleyes a break . I think the time has come to reduce tags, limits, cut seasons a bit shorter of whatever it takes!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom