Don't Hunt Southern Iowa!

M

MoBuckChaser

Guest
This was shot in NE Iowa this morning. Alamakee County, Iowa! 244" Gross!:eek:

morn.PNG
 
STUNNING!!!!!!
 
Living right across the river from Allamakee Co, this is one of many nice deer I have seen come from that area in the 10+years I have lived here. BEAST!!!
 
You gotta pay to play in that area. I've hunted there and they get some monsters. The pressure is high compared to many parts of iowa. I could go every year if I wanted, but 2 guys got shot in the gang I hunted with in 4 years. No buck is worth that, those guys are nuts.
We love the little town of decorah, which is just west of allamakee.
 
You gotta pay to play in that area. I've hunted there and they get some monsters. The pressure is high compared to many parts of iowa. I could go every year if I wanted, but 2 guys got shot in the gang I hunted with in 4 years. No buck is worth that, those guys are nuts.

Monsters and a lot of pressure generally do not go together. Must be a lot of cover in the area?
 
It's really no different from anywhere else over here in the Driftless Area, MoBuck.There are heavily wooded and brushy hillsides in every coulee, many of the bottoms are very thick and wet due to runoff and the fact that just about every valley has a spring creek running out of it. The wider, dryer valley bottoms are all prime ag land, as are the flat hilltops. The coup de grace for the hunters is the 400'-600' drops in elevation from the top to the bottom and the fact that many times these are almost sheer cliff face drop-offs or are at very steep inclines of 50 degrees or steeper, and heavily wooded. No way are you getting in to those areas without every deer in the country knowing where you are, and they know there are only certain ways a human can access their homes, so escape is either unnecessary or easy for the deer. Believe me, I have tried hunting this area for going on 12 years, for both turkey and deer and I am to the point that I mostly only hunt here to get out of the house, with no expectation of harvesting anything, even though we have some of the highest herd and flock densities in the state. I travel east to the flat swamps of Juneau Co. for my hunting needs, as it is far, far, better on these rickety old knees.
 
Part of the reason is the great cover. Most important is----Deer are allowed to age in this state. NE Iowa/southern Iowa and SW Iowa have great deer like this shot every year!

The trail cams pics I see from friends blow me away.
 
Last edited:
I've hunted there a couple bow seasons, once in 2008 and again last year and have had friends there too in the past. There was significantly more local pressure on the public ground and less mature deer the last time around than back in 2008. If you wanted to get a 3yr old buck, it is still a good place to go as I passed on a few then but it's much harder to find a really mature buck although it can and is still being done. Rather than bow hunt here again, I've considered going here for shot gun season as more of an extra hunt so I may travel there for the opener this year to to scout where the hunters are an are not.
 
My friend is on stand in Iowa as we speak. 3 guys down there and they started on Sunday evening. One guy is tagged out on his buck already. They have seen a 160 inch 10 pt, a handful of PY type bucks, and several young bucks.
All public land hunting too................

Frickin crazy.... on public land even..... Just amazing to me that you cross that magical border into MN and its a completely different world.
 
My friend is on stand in Iowa as we speak. 3 guys down there and they started on Sunday evening. One guy is tagged out on his buck already. They have seen a 160 inch 10 pt, a handful of PY type bucks, and several young bucks.
All public land hunting too................

Frickin crazy.... on public land even..... Just amazing to me that you cross that magical border into MN and its a completely different world.

Obvious reason, think of your friends and now picture them with shotguns and rifles. All of those bucks would be dead. I've hunted down there several times (come December) those same bucks are not running around with happy nuts. The deer hunker down more. That being said, since they have so many mature bucks the shotgun hunters still take plenty. It's the best of both worlds!
 
Obvious reason, think of your friends and now picture them with shotguns and rifles. All of those bucks would be dead. I've hunted down there several times (come December) those same bucks are not running around with happy nuts. The deer hunker down more. That being said, since they have so many mature bucks the shotgun hunters still take plenty. It's the best of both worlds!
I've wished Missouri gun season would go to the first weekend in December for a long time now.
 
Tradition keeps coming up in these topics as a reason for a number of things in MN.

Why is tradition here such a solid platform? Doesnt WI have tradition of some sort? There had to be some at one point in time. Why or how did the tradition morph into what it is today?
 
Interesting....
 
It all comes down to motivation, and interest. My best example is a neighbor to the property I bow hunt in Iowa. First off, you don't see a truck parked every .25 mile like central wi. You mostly don't see anyone. When the locals hunt it mostly social, and amateur hour compared to the dedication of wi hunters.
The year I shot my 188"er in Iowa, I was driving around, taking in the scenery of iowa in November. I was watching a 244" that was out on this bean field. Ya, 244". Apparently this neighbor where this 244" was a hard core bow hunter according to locals. It's an hour before dark, this 244" is 250 yards away, and this hardcore bowhunter is calling it quits for the day. Wtf! I talk to him and tell him there's a huge buck on his field, he shrugs it off and said he was cold. This guy didn't even have a quiver on his bow. They shot the buck shotgun season on a drive, along with a 220".
Like I've said, it's a different world. That's why there are Giants there. They are very inefficient hunters.
Now locals are catching on, hunting is becoming more popular, and the quality is slowly decreasing in Iowa.
It's all a cycle
 
Right in that area stu, mostly to the north toward Vernon Co. as well. On a clear day I can see Allamakee Co. from the blufftop above my house in South La Crosse. It is the northeastern most county in Iowa and touches Houston Co. MN. Which is the one place in MN that still has phenomenal hunting, but it seems like it might be declining a bit there as well over the last 11 years that I have lived over here.
 
Don't forget about "the government beef" in mn. It's what locals in northern mn call poached deer they use for eating. They hunt year round and shoot a deer whenever they need one. Been going on for years. I can see why they did it back in the day but now with all the food stamps and welfare being payed out there isn't a need for it.
 
Said it many times..... 99% of people that say they hunt for deer for the need for the meat are a bunch of goofballs...

I cant imagine how much money I have invested this year and I dont have 1 oz of venison to show for it. Now thats not very budget friendly food for the family.
 
Said it many times..... 99% of people that say they hunt for deer for the need for the meat are a bunch of goofballs...

I cant imagine how much money I have invested this year and I dont have 1 oz of venison to show for it. Now thats not very budget friendly food for the family.
Yep. Going to be lots of children and families starving this year. The "I need the meat" rationale is sheer lunacy. What's worse is the ones that "need the meat" and then turn it into something that doesn't even resemble venison and ends up costing $5/lb to add pork and seasoning anyway.
 
The "I need the meat" line is what we tell our wives so it looks like the reason we are doing all this hunting is for the welfare of the family! When a guy doesn't return with anything it doesn't look good and the hunting time gets replaced with chores.
 
Top