Heading down Friday night to stay in motel near hunting area. Birds are down but it’s Iowa so hopes are high.
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Iowa Opener
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October 27, 2011 at 2:36 pm #113242
Mikey cant make it this year so I am tagging along with his relatives. I’m sure him and I will hit it in Nov. And hopefully Dec in SD..
October 27, 2011 at 4:07 pm #113254We are still trying to work out some dates for December. Tough coordinating so many schedules.
JacobNohnerPosts: 217October 31, 2011 at 12:32 pm #113481Reports were true. Never seen it this bad in the areas we went. Weather means everything in pheasant country and last winter/spring really did a number. Ended up with 4 on opener between 3 guys and 3 dogs. Anyone else hit Iowa this past weekend?
October 31, 2011 at 12:49 pm #113484Bummer. Hopefully we have a mild winter and spring. These birds can rebound so fast with 2-3 hatches a summer.
October 31, 2011 at 4:48 pm #113501Quote:
Reports were true. Never seen it this bad in the areas we went. Weather means everything in pheasant country and last winter/spring really did a number. Ended up with 4 on opener between 3 guys and 3 dogs. Anyone else hit Iowa this past weekend?
This is actually the third year in a row that the ringnecks have endured nasty cold wet springs that have decimated lots of birds from the landscape at this time. The loss of CRP lands is starting to hurt as well… I went to school in the NE part of the state and still have friends from LaX going down and its been tough the last two seasons for sure.
Mark
October 31, 2011 at 6:44 pm #113511In states with very rich agriculture land like Iowa and Minnesota, I suspect there will be very little pheasant hunting in the future.
Dad has about 12 more years on his. As far as we are concerned, it will always be CRP in some fashion or another whether we are getting paid or not.
October 31, 2011 at 7:21 pm #113515Kooty:
Your family and families like yours will be the future of wildlife.
I haven’t been close to this as I should so there may be other reasons (budget) for CRP disappearing, but hopefully the government will find other renewable fuels to help take the pressure off the desire to put crops back into fields…
Mark
nittany_lionPosts: 44November 2, 2011 at 4:17 pm #113680We definitely had a slower opener than in the last 10 years. However, we were pleasantly surprised with how many total birds (especially hens) that we saw, as we were expecting the absolute worst.
10 guys ended with 20 birds on Saturday and 15 on Sunday.
The locals were telling us that there is some major speculation that a new soybean insecticide (Warrior?) is killing birds (robins, starlings, pheasants?). Will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Left the camera at home, so don’t have any pictures to post. Hopefully Whatsa can add a few! Jeff
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