JNRBRONC
Well-Known Member
Start planning now for Iowa's deer seasons
We’re still more than five weeks out from Iowa’s earliest deer seasons. That doesn’t stop the planning, though, as a 200,000 of us mix and match seasons, days off and which tags to buy. With a couple significant changes this season, however, many hunters will be making adjustments.
That scramble begins Thursday, the first day residents can purchase deer tags. With a short supply of early muzzleloader licenses, only 7,500 available, they have been snapped up in just a few days over the last six years. If you hesitate, then you will lose your chance for the October resident-only season.
That muzzleloader demand came with many December shotgun season hunters opting for both seasons. Since 2006, you could purchase a high demand “any deer” early muzzleloader tag and then settle for an “antlerless only” shotgun tag. You still could hunt both seasons and, with shotgun season party hunting, even take a buck if another party member was available to legally tag it.
But that was then.
“Now that Iowa’s deer numbers are back down to the statewide objective; we’re reeling it back in,” DNR deer research biologist Tom Litchfield said. “Hunters purchasing early season muzzleloader licenses won’t be hunting during the shotgun season, on the antlerless-only tags.”
Bottom line? If you still want to party-hunt with your friends in December, pass on the early muzzleloader season.
As always, if you qualify as a landowner/tenant, your options are more flexible. Free or reduced fee tags are available, across the seasons, on your farm property.
The other major change is the number of county-specific antlerless tags available. Those quotas grew through the 2000s, with pressure to harvest more does. Hunters did the job over most of the state. Lower antlerless quotas now reflect it.
“Throughout Eastern Iowa, the deer herd is down to (the targeted) mid to late 1990s levels,” Litchfield said. “The quotas were lowered by approximately 13,000 antlerless licenses. There is still plenty of opportunity and good tag availabilities.”
Hunters still can purchase one any deer gun season tag, another for the bow season and fill in with various combinations, using the 119,000 available antlerless tags for the seasons they are hunting while they last. With county quotas trimmed by 100, 200, even up to 1,000 or more in traditionally deer-heavy counties, they will likely sell out sooner.
Iowa’s south central and southeastern two tiers of counties still have strong antlerless allotments. Another option is the various urban or special hunt zones such as Coralville, north and eastern Johnson County, Lake Macbride State and F.W. Kent County parks. Others are listed in the 2012-13 hunting regulations.
Two lesser changes are elimination of the Thanksgiving weekend antlerless season and reducing the late January a week early.
DNR Building beckons
If you are among the million fair-goers descending on the east side of Des Moines in the next week or so, stop by the DNR Building. Set just inside the Grand Avenue gates, it has been an Iowa State Fair mainstay for more than a century.
The aquarium is the main draw, with fish and turtle species from across Iowa featured in the dozen tanks. Interactive displays are offered throughout the building. I’ll be there today, locked in the back of the building at the magazine and license counter. Stop by and say hello.
The pond on the west side features waterfowl and turtles, up close and personal. The courtyard has the full-sized replica of a bald eagle nest and this year, the world’s largest bird house. Daily presentations are listed for the courtyard stage, too.
Final adjustments
Iowa’s Natural Resources commission is slated to set late duck and Canada goose hunting season dates at its meeting today. Those final rules will be submitted to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which oversees each state’s dates and bag limits of migratory birds. One change is an increase in the scaup bag limit (from two to four birds), reflecting population surveys and federal guidelines. Iowa’s NRC approved early season dates and zone boundaries in June.
The late dates reflect Iowa’s new duck zone, west from Interstate 29 and north from Highway 175 to the Missouri River. That new zone’s late season will run Oct. 27 to Dec. 20.
Joe Wilkinson, information specialist for the Department of Natural Resources, is the Press-Citizen's outdoors columnist.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120809/SPORTS05/308090022/Start-planning-now-Iowa-s-deer-seasons?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Frontpage|p
We’re still more than five weeks out from Iowa’s earliest deer seasons. That doesn’t stop the planning, though, as a 200,000 of us mix and match seasons, days off and which tags to buy. With a couple significant changes this season, however, many hunters will be making adjustments.
That scramble begins Thursday, the first day residents can purchase deer tags. With a short supply of early muzzleloader licenses, only 7,500 available, they have been snapped up in just a few days over the last six years. If you hesitate, then you will lose your chance for the October resident-only season.
That muzzleloader demand came with many December shotgun season hunters opting for both seasons. Since 2006, you could purchase a high demand “any deer” early muzzleloader tag and then settle for an “antlerless only” shotgun tag. You still could hunt both seasons and, with shotgun season party hunting, even take a buck if another party member was available to legally tag it.
But that was then.
“Now that Iowa’s deer numbers are back down to the statewide objective; we’re reeling it back in,” DNR deer research biologist Tom Litchfield said. “Hunters purchasing early season muzzleloader licenses won’t be hunting during the shotgun season, on the antlerless-only tags.”
Bottom line? If you still want to party-hunt with your friends in December, pass on the early muzzleloader season.
As always, if you qualify as a landowner/tenant, your options are more flexible. Free or reduced fee tags are available, across the seasons, on your farm property.
The other major change is the number of county-specific antlerless tags available. Those quotas grew through the 2000s, with pressure to harvest more does. Hunters did the job over most of the state. Lower antlerless quotas now reflect it.
“Throughout Eastern Iowa, the deer herd is down to (the targeted) mid to late 1990s levels,” Litchfield said. “The quotas were lowered by approximately 13,000 antlerless licenses. There is still plenty of opportunity and good tag availabilities.”
Hunters still can purchase one any deer gun season tag, another for the bow season and fill in with various combinations, using the 119,000 available antlerless tags for the seasons they are hunting while they last. With county quotas trimmed by 100, 200, even up to 1,000 or more in traditionally deer-heavy counties, they will likely sell out sooner.
Iowa’s south central and southeastern two tiers of counties still have strong antlerless allotments. Another option is the various urban or special hunt zones such as Coralville, north and eastern Johnson County, Lake Macbride State and F.W. Kent County parks. Others are listed in the 2012-13 hunting regulations.
Two lesser changes are elimination of the Thanksgiving weekend antlerless season and reducing the late January a week early.
DNR Building beckons
If you are among the million fair-goers descending on the east side of Des Moines in the next week or so, stop by the DNR Building. Set just inside the Grand Avenue gates, it has been an Iowa State Fair mainstay for more than a century.
The aquarium is the main draw, with fish and turtle species from across Iowa featured in the dozen tanks. Interactive displays are offered throughout the building. I’ll be there today, locked in the back of the building at the magazine and license counter. Stop by and say hello.
The pond on the west side features waterfowl and turtles, up close and personal. The courtyard has the full-sized replica of a bald eagle nest and this year, the world’s largest bird house. Daily presentations are listed for the courtyard stage, too.
Final adjustments
Iowa’s Natural Resources commission is slated to set late duck and Canada goose hunting season dates at its meeting today. Those final rules will be submitted to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which oversees each state’s dates and bag limits of migratory birds. One change is an increase in the scaup bag limit (from two to four birds), reflecting population surveys and federal guidelines. Iowa’s NRC approved early season dates and zone boundaries in June.
The late dates reflect Iowa’s new duck zone, west from Interstate 29 and north from Highway 175 to the Missouri River. That new zone’s late season will run Oct. 27 to Dec. 20.
Joe Wilkinson, information specialist for the Department of Natural Resources, is the Press-Citizen's outdoors columnist.
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120809/SPORTS05/308090022/Start-planning-now-Iowa-s-deer-seasons?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Frontpage|p
