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dedgeez

dedgeez

death from above
Where are all the pics from 1st season? Has it been that slow for you shotgunners? I am amazed at the lack of harvest stories so far. I have been out scouting every night and I am seeing very few deer in the fields. Some of these areas get very little pressure and I'm seeing 2-5 deer in fields that usually have 20+ this time of year. The weather is cold and we have a skiff of snow here so the deer should be feeding hard. I know the overall numbers are down and I have not checked the overall harvest numbers yet to see where we are in relation to past years, but this is concerning to me. I heard alot of shooting on Sat and Sunday, but I haven't heard of any good bucks dying or for that matter deer stories period. Hopefully 2nd season is a little more productive for you guys and I really hope people are using their best judgement in deciding how many deer to shoot. Feel free to post numbers or share what you guys are seeing. I'm curious.
 
Iowa 1st gun season

We (my son and I) had a good hunt, but did not shoot a buck. Close calls and one miss at the outer edge of my range...we had fun, learned a lot about our new farm.

Deer sightings---about 25 per day, and some rutting with small bucks chasing does right by us. One nice 10 bedded by our blind but we could not get a shot (too thick).
 
Erick said:
guys around here didn't get squat 1st season. Weather was not in their favor. fine with me.
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Our group ended out pretty well. Saw 30+ Deer Saturday and Sunday.

Shot 1 Saturday and about 9 or 10 Sunday.
 
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Warren county

Very little movement in my area. Deer were bedding before light and not moving till last light. We sat hoping for pushing around us. We heard less than 25 shots all weekend. 6 of us sat both saturday and sunday. 1 doe and 2 young bucks total taken. Sat this morning and passed on 7 does. My deer did not move in their normal spots all weekend. This morning I sat 250yds out the back door to see the does this am. With my #'s being much lower the last 2 years,I chose to pass the breeders.
 
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I didn't hunt but did notice in the areas that werent being driven a couple of big boys on the prowl during midday no less.
 
Saw quiet a few fresh scrapes, we got snow on friday and by saturday morning on our first drive I saw 3 large scrapes. Also sat in a wagon blind tuesday night and watched some dinks bump some does around. Numbers are defintely down in central Iowa but we still saw 20+ deer per day for our group and we harvest as of yesterday 20 deer, 15 bucks and 5 does.
 
Saturday evening, in the rain, I managed to kill a spike buck and that was the only thing I saw at all. That was my first in 3 years, for several different reasons. I only heard 2 other shots, but it was raining pretty good sometimes. I did hear quite a bit of shooting around my place and up on the public ground that adjoins me, but haven't talked to anyone about results. Our main hunt will be this coming weekend.

I just checked the IDNR site and as of this morning, the harvest was only 66,124 total deer. That is for all seasons so far, ranging from mid September through December 7th or almost 3 months, and before the start of gun season I believe the number was just under 40,000 total. That means that the first season gun hunters did not manage to kill as many deer as the bow hunters have this year. This first gun season is typically the highest harvest numbers of any season, but this year it has fallen way short. Last year, as I remember the numbers, the late muzzle loader and the January anter-less seasons just accounted for a little over 20,000 deer. If that holds true again this year, in order to harvest the same 127,000 deer as last year, that would mean that over the next 9 day season we would need to harvest about 40,000 deer to attain the same harvest level. I really don't see that happening at all! I predicted earlier that this year might only have a harvest of 120,000 or less animals. I haven't seen the licenses sold numbers yet but if it is still 380,000 to 400,000 licenses, then that is a very dismal 30 percent success ratio. That means that only one out of every 3 or 4 tags will be put on a deer ( any deer). Just for information only, there have also been 98 shed bucks reported so far. :confused:
 
Seen a truckfull of bucks sitting out in front of Carl's bar here in downtown Des Moines today. Don't know if T-Bone is on this site, but they were all piled in his truck. Was gonna take a picture on my way back by, but he was gone by then. Looked like some nice bucks in the pile..
 
I haven't been seeing them in the fields lately either. Some deer in beans and a few in the picked corn if it hasn't been rolled yet. I'm thinking they are hitting acorns pretty hard if there around.

Know of two 190's a 170-180 and several 160's killed first season. Heard of another over 200 but have yet to see that one. Seems like the shotgunners just shoot them and hang them up. I've never got many pics in the shop during shotgun season.
 
I wasn't out first season but did drive around quite a bit. Never saw a single deer out in the field on Saturday and only a few out there on Sunday. I know a lot of the people in the area back home have switched from first season to second season. I think a lot of it has to do with the lower deer numbers and a lot of them have said it usually takes them both weekends to fill a few tags.
 
I just wonder how many guys looked at the crappy forecast for opening day and said the heck with it, I will go second season. I hunt a few large public tracts in southern iowa fully expecting world war 3 but it was not the case. One tract, about 1500 acres I don't think another person hunted. The other place had a few small groups go through but not all that much shooting going on.

I saw 41 deer during the season and 19 were bucks. Should of had two real nice ones and passed a nice mature buck that would of been around a 140 8pt but had a broken g3. Then a few 130s. Not too bad a season. I could of shot a boat load of does but chose not too.

I did get a picture of a 193 inch typical 10 that was shot. He was pretty nice. Last year he was much bigger though. His right side scored 107 as a 5 pt and his other was 112 with a kicker.
 
Liv4Rut said:
I just wonder how many guys looked at the crappy forecast for opening day and said the heck with it, I will go second season. I hunt a few large public tracts in southern iowa fully expecting world war 3 but it was not the case. One tract, about 1500 acres I don't think another person hunted. The other place had a few small groups go through but not all that much shooting going on.

I saw 41 deer during the season and 19 were bucks. Should of had two real nice ones and passed a nice mature buck that would of been around a 140 8pt but had a broken g3. Then a few 130s. Not too bad a season. I could of shot a boat load of does but chose not too.

I did get a picture of a 193 inch typical 10 that was shot. He was pretty nice. Last year he was much bigger though. His right side scored 107 as a 5 pt and his other was 112 with a kicker.
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Now that is a stud, last year he woulda been pushin at Milo's buck had he even an 18 inch spread, depending on his deductions.
 
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