Upland/Small Game
Iowa Pheasant Hunt
7/22/11 @ 11:42 AM
I'm looking to plain a trip out to Iowa this fall for a pheasant hunt. I'm from Milwaukee, WI and I've been told that Iowa is a very close second to South Dakota when it comes to pheasant hunting and would be half the distance for me. I've never hunted TRUE wild pheasant, my dog and I spend the majority of our fall hunting northern WI for the elusive ruffed grouse and central WI at public grounds where pheasants are released or at a game farm. I've done some research on my own for what part of Iowa I should go to and public lands to hunt but I'm not finding much. Hoping for some help and guidance on this topic. I'd like to know what part of the state I should be focusing my attention for the best experience, maybe recommend a place to stay, parcel of land to hunt, farmer to ask, etc.
Displaying 1 to 15 of 19 posts
The 125.00 isn't that bad really... close enough (5 hour drive ) to make it over there 3- 4 times a season for a couple long weekends. Most days with some hard work in the fields you come away with a limit. It's equal to planting 5 roosters at a game farm for an hour shoot !? But can't compare to the amount of birds flushed and the quality of a hunt.
Will be out one more time this year for another 4 day adventure....
B12
yes i agree. I kind of thought $125 was a little much for small game.
I fell like the area we hunted could be great pheasant hunting if the DNR spent a little money on planting additional roosters. Just to keep the huntable numbers up and help to keep numbers stronger. Plenty of space and food to support the numbers.
Made my first trip to iowa for pheasant this past weekend. 4 guys 2 dogs (1 in training) hunting Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Didn’t get as many roosters as we had hoped, but seen a ton of birds. Probably flushed on average 60-80 birds a day, but almost all of them where hens. We figured we were flushing a 15:1 hen to rooster ratio. The birds didn’t really sit tight either…tough to get the roosters to flush. They kept running which resulted in them flushing just out of range. All in all plenty of birds out there, but would have liked to seen way more roosters.
Dogs, gave the prairie every ounce of energy they had. My 2 year black lab is beat, he’ll be spending the day on the couch I'm sure!
i have hunted iowa pheasants in north central iowa since i was 12 and im now 44 and i have never seen numbers this low. my family owns a couple of farms with great habitat (CRP) and "some" birds were there but not many. i took my son back there for his first hunt and promised him after the disappointing weekend that most years aren't like this. pheasants always seem to rebound so hopefully we have a mild winter and dryer spring.
I have been hunting birds in iowa for the last 15 years. we allways hunt the northcentral to northwest part of the state. there are plenty of public areas to hunt. get ahold of iowa dnr and get a book of all the public land. or just knock on peoples doors, they dont seem to mind as long as you arent deer hunting. later in the year work the frozen cattail marshes, since iowa is so dang windy all the time thats where the birds go.
Displaying 1 to 15 of 19 posts
