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

Sac County Iowa? Anyone hunt near there?

kam582

kam582

New Member
My wife and I are contemplating a retirement move and have been researching Lake View Iowa on Blackhawk Lake in Sac County. We are looking at that area for a couple of reasons, the foremost being that it would still be relatively close to kids and grand-kids. I live in Pottawattamie County and have access to some great deer hunting, which I have really enjoyed for several years. I have tried to research deer populations in Sac County, and from what I have seen it looks pretty grim. No extra anterless tags issued last season, only about 300 total deer taken last season, and only 5 turkeys shot this spring. I think that is telling me that there are very few deer and turkeys in that county for some reason. I have never been there, as I said we are only starting to research this, and I can't understand why there are few deer in such a high agriculture area. Can anyone help me understand this, or am I reading the figures from the DNR wrong?
Thanks for any help.
 
oldgene said:
It's farmed fence row to fence row.
Click to expand...


Don't know the area BUT I can visualize what you're talking about. I'll bet there's a FEW rivers that run through the county with the majority of timber and the vast vast vast part of the county is flat open corn/bean fields with NO WHERE for a deer to hide. I'm guessing very low deer population and the areas that do have timber get hit really hard by all hunters- very rare for a buck to make it to maturity. That'd be my guess as I've seen many of those northern counties that fit that profile.
 
Grew in up NE Calhoun. Although Calhoun is probably worse than Sac, Sac is for the most part tillable farmland. A little bit of Boyer River and N Raccoon River areas cross the county N-S but I suspect the river corridors are pretty thin that far upstream, so to speak. I would suspect it will be quite the step backwards from a habitat perspective from Pott County.

Just my $.02 worth.
 
BJohnson said:
Grew in up NE Calhoun. Although Calhoun is probably worse than Sac, Sac is for the most part tillable farmland. A little bit of Boyer River and N Raccoon River areas cross the county N-S but I suspect the river corridors are pretty thin that far upstream, so to speak. I would suspect it will be quite the step backwards from a habitat perspective from Pott County.

Just my $.02 worth.
Click to expand...

Pott, Montgomery, Page, and Adams I know have had some nice Deer. I'm guessing it's more Southern Countys that have heavy timber.
 
Geez Teenage, you must want more hunters in your area. The best ground IMO is the ground you dont hear about..
 
Sac county has very little deer habitat. As mentioned before the Raccoon and Boyer Rivers have some timber, but there is limited hunting according to a guy that I work with that lives in that area. The ones that hunt the area for deer are they guys that surround a section and hunt out of trucks. The fishing is pretty good in Black Hawk Lake and the Raccoon River for walleye and flatheads.
 
Thanks for the answers. It is as I expected, and probably a deal breaker for me. The lake and community looked like a nice place to live, pretty far from any large population centers, which I thought would mean pretty good hunting. Unfortunately it's not, and I have to have some deer hunting, or I will be miserable.

I really want to stay in Iowa, despite what the governor is trying to do. At least Iowa has the most friendly seasons for bow hunters. If anyone knows of a lake in Western or Northwestern Iowa with decent fishing, and good whitetail populations, drop me a message.
 
I have a buddy that lives up there, good duck hunting and fishing, but not the area for deer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom