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Thoughts on deer prospects this year?

Firearm opened here this past Saturday.

I've put on about 150 miles in those 3 days, mostly gravel roads following rivers.
Actually LOOKING for guys out hunting.
I think I seen more jackrabbits.
Dismal/ pathetic..

20 years ago, I'd go to bed at night and have dreams of the orange armies that I seen.

Opening weekend 20 years ago, common to hear a couple hundred shots first hour in the morning.
Ain't heard 20 in the past 3 days.
 
Muskrat24 said:
The only part of the explanations that don’t add up is that the harvest has not drastically increased. Does anyone know where to find the license sale data? I get the more days afield shows more pressure, specifically on public lands but the harvest data has been roughly 99 K to 109.5K in last 10 years.
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You’re not accounting for EHD. There’s years where counties have seen 50% of their deer killed off. Yet the deer harvests #’s don’t decrease? Meaning more of your mature deer are getting killed. Same thing with turkeys and same thing with waterfowl. Banding data showed record number of adult/breeder birds have been harvested since Covid. Mixed with bad hatches, it’s a combination for a disaster, which those that waterfowl hunt are seeing it across the Mississippi flyway, record low numbers.

Turkeys, same goes with those. We know there not making more habitat for turkeys , we know people aren’t trapping on every acre across Iowa, yet almost every county post covid has set record harvests, how can that be?
 
Bucksnbears said:
Firearm opened here this past Saturday.

I've put on about 150 miles in those 3 days, mostly gravel roads following rivers.
Actually LOOKING for guys out hunting.
I think I seen more jackrabbits.
Dismal/ pathetic..

20 years ago, I'd go to bed at night and have dreams of the orange armies that I seen.

Opening weekend 20 years ago, common to hear a couple hundred shots first hour in the morning.
Ain't heard 20 in the past 3 days.
Click to expand...
Funny question, but do u have a lot of jackrabbits? We used to see one once in a while, but can't remember the last time I saw one. Always thought they were pretty neat critters.
 
Muskrat24 said:
The only part of the explanations that don’t add up is that the harvest has not drastically increased. Does anyone know where to find the license sale data? I get the more days afield shows more pressure, specifically on public lands but the harvest data has been roughly 99 K to 109.5K in last 10 years.
Click to expand...
That's the whole problem. Over the last 10 years there has been wave after wave of EHD, on top of technology & pressure increases, yet harvest has stayed the same. Recipe for disaster
 
Bucksnbears said:
Firearm opened here this past Saturday.

I've put on about 150 miles in those 3 days, mostly gravel roads following rivers.
Actually LOOKING for guys out hunting.
I think I seen more jackrabbits.
Dismal/ pathetic..

20 years ago, I'd go to bed at night and have dreams of the orange armies that I seen.

Opening weekend 20 years ago, common to hear a couple hundred shots first hour in the morning.
Ain't heard 20 in the past 3 days.
Click to expand...

If you come down to my county, I’ll show you hunters. One year there was 7 trucks parked on a 90 acre public parcel on opening morning.
 
Here are my approximate numbers I've been keeping track of this year. Unfortunately I haven't had many opportunities to sit this year and seems like when I have its a stupid SE wind. South Central Iowa Marion/Lucas counties on traditionally pretty solid farms.

- 4 separate farms and I'm sure these numbers are skewed on the high side being repeat sightings.
- 8 sits ( 1 youth hunt, 4 sits were on same day AM/PM sits)
- 24 does
- 11 fawns
- 9 bucks with 6 points or less
- 6 bucks with over 6 points
- 1 buck 3 years old maybe 4

Worst I've had in a long time. I have not seen any signs of EHD but I haven't been out looking either.
Run lots of cams. Hard to tell overall numbers from cams but they seem average to little less than average. Handful of older class bucks but I'd say the overall number is lower than normal.
 
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On our farm the major problem has been EHD. We lose far more deer to ehd than are harvested. IMO, I believe ehd, being a virus, could be solved if there were dollars and funds made available to solve it. I believe Skip may have mentioned a couple times, it would good if some of the resources spent on CWD be diverted and put towards minimizing ehd. Again, I personally believe if states wanted to solve this problem they could. In a world without ehd, one has to wonder what Iowa could be.
 
Bucksnbears said:
Firearm opened here this past Saturday.

I've put on about 150 miles in those 3 days, mostly gravel roads following rivers.
Actually LOOKING for guys out hunting.
I think I seen more jackrabbits.
Dismal/ pathetic..

20 years ago, I'd go to bed at night and have dreams of the orange armies that I seen.

Opening weekend 20 years ago, common to hear a couple hundred shots first hour in the morning.
Ain't heard 20 in the past 3 days.
Click to expand...

Same going on around me in mid MO. Used to be WW2 on opening morning. Still hear shots, but nothing like it used to be.
 
trophybluf@borderlandnet. said:
On our farm the major problem has been EHD. We lose far more deer to ehd than are harvested. IMO, I believe ehd, being a virus, could be solved if there were dollars and funds made available to solve it. I believe Skip may have mentioned a couple times, it would good if some of the resources spent on CWD be diverted and put towards minimizing ehd. Again, I personally believe if states wanted to solve this problem they could. In a world without ehd, one has to wonder what Iowa could be.
Click to expand...
EHD has killed way more deer than hunters or predators in the areas I hunt over the past few years. It's a far greater threat to me than any regulation change on the horizon. I'm all in if there's a way to do something about it.
 
Thinkin Rut said:
It might also be a far greater threat to Rec land values than the economy in general.
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I think Iowa tightening up our rules and regulations regarding non resident loop holes is a far better potential to see rec land prices fall, vs EHD. Like others have said, our hunting even at its worse is far better than majority of places in the United States. Historically my area is Michigan guys, Arkansas guys, Pennsylvania guys. The hunting in those area is apparently pretty poor, because guys are ecstatic to come here and hunt 140” 3 year old class deer.

Get rid of the non resident land owner and I think that’s going to bring down the recreational land prices down………….
 
Muddyrem said:
Get rid of the non resident land owner and I think that’s going to bring down the recreational land prices down………….
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Nothing will get rid of a non resident landowner more than waiting 5 or 6 years for a tag then finding out you've been bitch slapped by EHD. I guess only the fullness of time will tell how it plays out. Since EHD overwinters in cattle, that is where the effort should be. Breaking that cycle for a couple of years might be the ticket.
 
Ultimately good chance the deer become resistant to EHD. That's what's happened in the southern United States. It's basically a non-issue down there.

The question is, how long does that take in the Midwest/Iowa ? 10 years? 50 years? Using down south as a case study it looks like 2-3 decades. So call 2012 the main starting point. Maybe this is a non issue by 2032?

Food for thought.

 
IowaBowHunter1983 said:
Ultimately good chance the deer become resistant to EHD. That's what's happened in the southern United States. It's basically a non-issue down there.

The question is, how long does that take in the Midwest/Iowa ? 10 years? 50 years? Using down south as a case study it looks like 2-3 decades. So call 2012 the main starting point. Maybe this is a non issue by 2032?

Food for thought.

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I hope you're right. EHD has been around for a while, but it seems like it's been most devastating in the last 10-15 yrs.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 
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