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Taking bets

That definitely makes a difference, I’d be curious exactly how many antlerless tags were taken away.
One interesting statistic I noticed was in 2010 we shot 47,000 bucks and in 2024 we shot 43,000
Everyone I talk to says they have half as many deer as they used to if not even less than that, yet we’re killing almost the same number of bucks.
 
I have not talked to a single experienced hunter that thought this year was a great year for deer #’s or good bucks. I have a friend that has a huge farm that is the only place I know that had 2 giants shot. This was after a 3 year drought on shooting a big Buck & even though they got 2 giants - they said it’s not ideal.
Bet I’ve talked to hunters in every one of our 100 counties.

To the original post…. Here’s issue with #’s…. Maybe in years past - average guy sees “20 bucks and 50 does” in a season (whatever- making this up) & shoots say, 1 buck & 3 does….
That same guy might see 10 bucks and 25 does this season…. Still shoots 1 buck & 3 does. Let’s face it…. Even in areas with lower #’s…. If the deer are there, they are not hard to kill & dudes just kill.

We truly need a 2 year period where we go to 1 buck & cut doe quotas in half in about 75% of the counties. That’s what it might take to get us back to “normal”.


Iowa said:
That definitely makes a difference, I’d be curious exactly how many antlerless tags were taken away.
One interesting statistic I noticed was in 2010 we shot 47,000 bucks and in 2024 we shot 43,000
Everyone I talk to says they have half as many deer as they used to if not even less than that, yet we’re killing almost the same number of bucks.
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BINGO!!!!! This is why the age class has gotten ravaged vs 10 years ago or whatever. “I gotta get my buck” & dudes just Lower their standards. When an area had “100 bucks before” & 30 got shot…. 70 left.
Now…. U start with 60 bucks for example & dudes still shoot darn near 30. That’s clearly a difference of 70 bucks being left over vs 30 in my made up example. It’s no mystery what so ever that literally every single person I know is incredibly concerned & wondering how we recover.


Our KS farm this year…. Absolutely way way way more mature bucks. Age class is like iowa used to be. We probably had 15 bucks 5.5 or older that lived or frequented there. Pressure & deer population has been very steady/flat for years. Gotta say it….. 1 buck…. Amazing what it does there. & I seriously don’t ever talk to anyone that even has a problem with it. Maybe for cull bucks but that’s about it. & fyi…. Everyone of of the cull/bullies got shot by guests that loved doing it.
 
If I’m reading the harvest data correctly for every 6 “antlerless” deer shot 1 of them is either a button buck or a shed buck.
Somewhat of an argument against shooting at running, driven deer?

6900 buck fawns and 1000 shed bucks against 39,900 bucks means 16% of the bucks shot so far in the 2025 season were shot by “accident “

That’s almost double the number of bucks shot by someone that used their second buck tag.
 
I think the quality of our Bucks are dropping much faster than anyone is realizing. We're in the market for a 100-150 acre piece, and I can say very few for sale in the southern Iowa counties we are looking at have trail cam pics that make me want to buy the piece. Most are using pics from 2021 or 2022, or strictly using in velvet pics.

With that said, if any of you know of a good piece for sale, or coming up for sale let me know. We're quiet neighbors that keep to ourselves and will be doing our best to help the age and quality structure. I get as much joy at shooting a mature "Cull" buck as a Booner.

Counties that would work best for our situation would be Washington, Keokuk, and Jefferson. WIth Davis, Wapello, Van Buren also being doable. Maybe even surrounding counties if on the "right" side of them. Trying to keep within 2 hours.
 
newfarmer said:
Well 99,000… I can’t even believe it but I think people “fill tags because they have them”… yikes
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I think the majority of folks are meat hunting, do they want to shoot a good buck? Sure…but they’d rather fill a tag and have meat in the freezer.
 
Matthewfox_45 said:
I think the majority of folks are meat hunting, do they want to shoot a good buck? Sure…but they’d rather fill a tag and have meat in the freezer.
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I don’t disagree with that statement at all- I said in a different post somewhere- the price of beef is going to hurt the deer herd if we keep handing out excess tags
 
Lots of killing yet to happen in many counties with the late season and shoot them with anything above a .223. straight from DNR email....

The final deer seasons are the two January antlerless deer only seasons – the Population Management January Antlerless Season and the Excess Tag January Antlerless Season. Both seasons run from Jan. 11-25, but there are differences between the two.

The Population Management January Antlerless Season is available only in Allamakee, Appanoose, Decatur, Lucas, Monroe, Wayne and Winneshiek counties if there are more than 100 antlerless tags available in that county on Dec. 22. Since all seven counties met that requirement, all seven will be open. Hunters participating in the population management January antlerless season may use bows, muzzleloaders, handguns, shotguns, crossbows, or rifles .223 caliber and larger, as a method of take.

The Excess Tag January Antlerless-deer-only season will be available in all counties with unsold county antlerless tags at midnight on January 11.

Currently, counties with unsold antlerless tags include Adair, Allamakee, Appanoose, Clarke, Clayton, Dallas, Davis, Decatur, Fayette, Guthrie, Jefferson, Lee, Lucas, Madison, Monroe, Taylor, Union, Van Buren, Wapello, Warren, Wayne, and Winneshiek.
 
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