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NDA report, interesting re yearling bucks…

Rous14

Rous14

PMA Member
There was a thread under the NRLO poll question the other day where I talked about how I feel the quality in IA would instantly improve if NRLO’s were allowed to hunt annually especially if it there was a substantial minimum acre requirement. This morning I was reading through the NDA’s annual report and found this statistic to be very interesting and, assuming it’s accurate or close to it anyway, would seem to further illustrate my point. NRLO’s are there to chase old mature giant bucks. Residents of any state, the vast majority of them, are shooting anything and everything.
Doesn’t mean there aren’t other very valid and justifiable reasons to fight against allowing it to happen though as I said in my post. Just don’t think the “quality would go to crap overnight” argument is one of them.


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Wouldn’t have ever guessed that IA had the “worst” % of young bucks being taken and also wouldn’t have guessed states like Oklahoma or Arkansas would be so good at taking a high % of 3 yr olds or older. Pretty interesting data imo
I’m curious to know how they’re tracking the age of animals that are killed though. I’m skeptical at the reliability of this data.
 
DMarley83 said:
There was also a news article in the Des.Moines register that said kamala harris was winning iowa by 15 points.....
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I hear ya. How do you know if anything is true/accurate anymore.
Maybe I’ll reach out to Kip Adams and see if he can shed more light on how this info was collected. I see Illinois listed on there as well and while I have to report every deer I take there is nothing that would give them information as to how old the deer I’m reporting is.
 
seven twenty said:
This would be the same report they got their #’s from. 10% of the bucks harvested during the gun seasons were button bucks (yearlings)
Antlered deer made up 44% of total harvest, not yearlings.
That would mean a lot of bow hunters are shooting Bambi if they want us to believe that they bumped that 10% to 40+.


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Any idea as to how they know the age of the deer harvested to come up w that 10%?
 
I totally understand the POV. &…. I totally understand that many NR’s are there to shoot only bucks & generally not super young ones. Totally agree. I also agree on being skeptical of the data! ;)
On the other side- there is a ton of residents managing for older deer. Especially the residents that own the land for hunting - which will be the exact guys the NR’s would be competing with if they could buy with guaranteed tags.

Here’s where all this leads though…. Iowa having 7-8% timber- u open to NR’s & it’s gonna be a mad dash to buy up any parcel for sale. Residents better hurry because the price of land would get up to $15k REAL FAST. & yes, 10000000%, it’ll get to $15k. Right now NE iowa is fetching $10k with no NR tags. Best areas in WI (that are not as good as iowa) are bringing $12-15k. Prices would sky rocket so bad it’s crazy. Then what happens???? When prices get obscene (I don’t even like how high they are NOW & what happening NOW)…. Land is gonna segmented fast!!!! Say u made it “80 acres for NR’s” ….. it’ll get cut into 80’s at light speed. Even if u made it higher for acres- still would explode the price. Then- with those high prices- now residents will start with: “well, I’m young & middle class, I can only afford 10 or 20 acres”. Gets cut up like crazy. When that happens- game over. We’re toast. 100000% we will get chopped up fast.
I did watch this play out in IL. All these dudes from MI, PA, GA, NJ, AR, AL, etc- they flooded it. Stuff got parceled smaller. & …. MOST of those guys ended up saying 1 of 3 things…… 1) “this 2.5 or 3.5 with trash & kickers is a giant vs what I hunt in my state” & they shoot em. 2) since we parceled it up, I just can’t pass this young stud cause if I don’t shoot, my neighbor will”. & yes…. 3) some hard core guys lucky enough to buy a big farm sometimes pass em but they usually have parceled stuff next to em & get hit hard. IL opening up & selling out when it comes to NR’s, outfitting- took that state from great to a shell of itself very fast.

Totally agree that residents can be lunatics. It’s just- it keeps it at say 165k of them. Open up to NR’s & then it could easily add an additional 20,000 fast on top of residents until enough residents got forced out.
I will say this…. If Made it 640 acre min…. 1) I’d make a lot of $ - that I don’t wanna make for that reason 2) it would be great for those hunting that land or next to it. No doubt what so ever. It would make the average areas far worse though from all reasons above. & billions would pour into iowa to buy every drop they could. Again- if huge parcels - good for big bucks around those farms. The other problem saying “640 acres or more”…. Be a matter of years before they fought to change the law down to 80’s anyways. If that happened - good bye iowa. Done.
 
What’s your thoughts on that NDA info Skip. Seems like a big, solid, dare I say reputable organization in general. Do you know much about them? Do you know Kip? Just wondering where/how theyre getting this info (hopefully not from out of their tail parts).
 
Rous14 said:
There was a thread under the NRLO poll question the other day where I talked about how I feel the quality in IA would instantly improve if NRLO’s were allowed to hunt annually especially if it there was a substantial minimum acre requirement. This morning I was reading through the NDA’s annual report and found this statistic to be very interesting and, assuming it’s accurate or close to it anyway, would seem to further illustrate my point. NRLO’s are there to chase old mature giant bucks. Residents of any state, the vast majority of them, are shooting anything and everything.
Doesn’t mean there aren’t other very valid and justifiable reasons to fight against allowing it to happen though as I said in my post. Just don’t think the “quality would go to crap overnight” argument is one of them.


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I’m sure somewhere we can find where allowing crossbows will help handicapped and older hunters be able to shoot more mature bucks too…. Your proposal will only help rich NRLO and destroy access worse than it is now. No sympathy here. Hope people can look past any proposed improvement to big bucks for the huge negatives that would come along with NRLO getting to hunt every year.
 
Rous14 said:
What’s your thoughts on that NDA info Skip. Seems like a big, solid, dare I say reputable organization in general. Do you know much about them? Do you know Kip? Just wondering where/how theyre getting this info (hopefully not from out of their tail parts).
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I don’t have a firm answer on this of course… only speculation & experience. We don’t age deer in iowa (or KS) in any organized fashion ….. so how the world do they say 42% are yearlings?!?! Unless im missing some odd random sampling that sure isn’t accurate over the state. & yes- I’m sure some folks shoot yearlings. I’m all over this state & I just don’t buy that. Even most the gun drive “shoot em all” guys pass young bucks…. Or they literally just shoot at every deer. Kids occasionally shoot em. I know there’s casual hunters out there…. I still add all this up and go “no way are 42% of bucks shot yearlings”. Like- going to a huge locker & being to 3-4 different ones over 25 years…. If I guessed, maybe 10% are 1.5 year olds. That’s far from scientific but I’ve never seen results like that in any part of the state for 25 years now. Ever.

I kinda think of it like this…. You guys ever get like field & stream magazine or one of the magazines that publish “these are the best deer hunting states!!!” & they have this list that is always ridiculous… ok, here’s one of a billion examples…. U know - the ones that have MI or NE ranked way over KS or IA. They are always goofy. One example in this link:
www.gameandfishmag.com

America's Top Whitetail States - Game & Fish

Our ranking of 37 deer-crazy states, backed by research and data.
www.gameandfishmag.com www.gameandfishmag.com

So- NDA usually seems like they do things like this and get this fuzzy data that’s not at all reality. “Mississippi is better than iowa” or whatever weird data they wanna site. It’s just not right. “PA beats KS” (million wild examples like this)…. NO- it doesn’t. Sorry. You’re simply out of your mind!!!!!! I’ve had the luck of being able to hunt both sides of borders or be on farms in countless examples… iowa or MO. KS to NE. KS to OK. MI to OH & IN. IA to IL. On & on…. It’s so frigin obvious when u cross these lines. Hunting tanks from one state to another. But according to this or that article or data source - I’m the one out of my mind. Maybe I’ve been wrong all along!!! MI destroys Iowa!!!!
 
Muskrat24 said:
I’m sure somewhere we can find where allowing crossbows will help handicapped and older hunters be able to shoot more mature bucks too…. Your proposal will only help rich NRLO and destroy access worse than it is now. No sympathy here. Hope people can look past any proposed improvement to big bucks for the huge negatives that would come along with NRLO getting to hunt every year.
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I don’t have a proposal and I’ve said there are many great reasons to leave it as is. And allowing handicapped and older hunters to use crossbows certainly allows them to hunt/shoot more mature bucks that they might not otherwise be able to do, I’m all for that (and I despise xguns) so not sure what your point is there.
 
I’m just saying that you are selling a point and trying to back it up that is 100% self fulfilling and clearly not in the best interest of many others. I’m not throwing stones but your reasoning comes with way more downside to Iowa hunting than you as a big NRLO to get bigger bucks in IOWA. I hope we pass on that idea. Honestly I would give up the trophy aspect for the majority being happy with average before I would support turning Iowa into what Skip described through allowing big NRLO to hunt Iowa every year.
 
Rous14 said:
I hear ya. How do you know if anything is true/accurate anymore.
Maybe I’ll reach out to Kip Adams and see if he can shed more light on how this info was collected. I see Illinois listed on there as well and while I have to report every deer I take there is nothing that would give them information as to how old the deer I’m reporting is.
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Honestly with all the fake news, AI generated b s, you pretty much cannot believe anything and just have to go with your gut.

I used to say , believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. Now you can't even do that.

Do a lot of the year and a half olds get shot sure. I don't know what the number is, but I'd say 50% of privately owned ground is hunted by owners or family or family friends. Unless they are new to the sport , I highly doubt they're shooting here and a half olds....

Is there a mortality rate of 42%?I would say yes , that is very likely, i'm also willing to bet hunter is not the top cause
 
DMarley83 said:
Honestly with all the fake news, AI generated b s, you pretty much cannot believe anything and just have to go with your gut.

I used to say , believe none of what you hear and half of what you see. Now you can't even do that.

Do a lot of the year and a half olds get shot sure. I don't know what the number is, but I'd say 50% of privately owned ground is hunted by owners or family or family friends. Unless they are new to the sport , I highly doubt they're shooting here and a half olds....

Is there a mortality rate of 42%?I would say yes , that is very likely, i'm also willing to bet hunter is not the top cause
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Go to any locker during the gun seasons and you will see with your own eyes the truth to how many year and half bucks are harvested. The stated numbers are very believable.
 
Here's the thing , though , how many farms are still getting pushed and treated like that?

I'm guessing less than 50% of the farms from 20 yrs ago. That's 2006 BTW which is hard to believe!
 
150 Class said:
Go to any locker during the gun seasons and you will see with your own eyes the truth to how many year and half bucks are harvested. The stated numbers are very believable.
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U see that? The lockers I go to have been SE iowa & SC iowa. So- for sure not statewide. But- if I see 10% 1.5 year old bucks…. Be about right but maybe others seeing a lot different results.
 
Sligh1 said:
U see that? The lockers I go to have been SE iowa & SC iowa. So- for sure not statewide. But- if I see 10% 1.5 year old bucks…. Be about right but maybe others seeing a lot different results.
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Yup, what I see. My perception, my reality. Pretty consistent year after year. It’s ok with me when anyone questions it. Also, it’s easy for me and my perception to question your observation. 10% 1.5 year olds? Your reality, and that’s fine. Your area is far better than most at passing the up and comers. Must be nice. 10%? Cool!
 
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150 Class said:
Yup, what I see. My perception, my reality. Pretty consistent year after year. It’s ok with me when anyone questions it. Also, it’s easy for me and my perception to question your observation. 10% 1.5 year olds? Your reality, and that’s fine. Your area is far better than most at passing the up and comers. Must be nice. 10%? Cool!
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For sure agree. Totally anecdotal what I’ve seen. if I tried to make it a scientific paper on that - it would be a huge flop for credibility for hard evidence. Was a genuine ? for u & I absolutely believe you.

The other anecdotal thing I’ve seen for 30+ years now…. You go to states like: MICHIGAN….. after about 3-4 days of gun season…. You might see a handful of 1.5’s that made it- like sit the rest of the season & see a handful TOTAL. Or even across a whole season- if you lay your eyes on a 3.5 year old- doing great. Maybe a few regions you might see an older one but super rare.
In iowa…. 25 years I’ve hunted small stuff: 5 acre to 80 acres & in every single case, I can sit later in year “there’s 2 2.5’s, a 3.5 & a 4.5 in the field”. Fairly Common. A normal good night you could see 3 different age classes of bucks or more. I don’t see this any other state except maybe KS or a HUGE farm in mediocre states. So- to say these mediocre states are shooting less young bucks than iowa & doing better for age class….. it’s BS. I don’t buy it for one second.
 
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