Iowa Pheasant Hunting
Iowa pheasant hunting with Mid-America Hunting Association is across south central Iowa in the Grand River Watershed bringing the pheasant holding combination of many brushed drainage's cutting through large rolling grain crop fields. And, there are Bobwhite Quail making for a mixed bag upland bird hunt.
Iowa's pheasant season opens the last Saturday in October and closes in middle January. This earlier opener compared to Missouri and Kansas gives the MAHA hunter a full 3 months of upland bird hunts. Within our approach to managed wild bird hunts each hunter may hunt his choice of available season days as often as he may like. The Kansas and Missouri option provides all day hunts with full daylight shooting hours (Iowa shooting hours are 8 to 430) and twice the quail in Missouri and twice the pheasants in Kansas.
2010 Iowa Pheasant Hunting Land within MAHA
The map below shows where MAHA leases private land for our exclusive use in Iowa for Bobwhite Quail and pheasant hunts for the 2010 season.
The Iowa pheasant daily bag limit is 3 per day and 6 possession. As a fair chase pheasant hunting organization compliance to all state and federal hunting regulations is a must. Kansas allows four rooster daily bag.
The one disadvantage of this earlier Iowa season opener is that it is far more likely that standing crops will be in the fields during the early part of the season and greatly expands the available cover habitat for the birds to disperse into. Kansas late to the last day in January pheasant hunts are warmer to the point snow ground cover is far less to non-existent compared to Iowa.
After crop harvest many find that combined with the cooler weather of the middle season to offer far better conditions with the the pheasants concentrated in the draws. Again compared to Kansas the Kansas early season disadvantage are warmer temperatures.
The late season has been good to us as those that hunt with their own dogs typically have a good bird finding day regardless of the time of the season. Should Iowa have a bad year for any reason a bit more driving to our Kansas or Missouri private land will allow late, through January hunts.
Mid-America Hunting Association has been a private land self guided hunter organization since 1965. The current ownership dates back to 1981 with the founders long past. The two partners both hunt over bird dogs of their own training. They have a good understanding of the customer service required of the traveling hunter to insure they park their truck, step out and hunt at the right spot.
Some hunters consider Iowa's higher winter snowfall and colder average winter temperatures results in lower quail and pheasant population densities and lesser hunt quality than Kansas. From our own direct observation of upland bird population seasonal changes we have not seen the adverse winter snowfall weather affects that concerns others. Taken to the extreme are the Dakotas with their far colder and deeper snow fall amounts. They have shown winter kill not to be as strong an indicator of subsequent hunt quality as other indicators. See our upland bird forecast methodology and history for our region.
This good hunt quality may be due in part to our lease land being in the southern part of Iowa with less adverse pheasant weather affects than other Iowa locations. What winter does give us is the chance to learn more about our Iowa pheasant population through the sign they leave behind when we do get snow on the ground.
We do however agree with many others that spring rainfall during the critical hatch and brood months of May and June does directly affect the chick survival rates of all ground nesting and brooding birds to include affecting the quality of our upland bird hunts. This is far more true of quail and pheasant than the longer lived turkeys.
Member/hunter feedback is a big part of our organization. All pictures on this web site are at the courtesy of our members.
This is Andrew, a hunter of versatile dogs.
This spring rainfall receives our due diligent observation each spring for all three states as one part of our upland bird forecasting elements. That in addition to our direct on the ground experience throughout the year in every region we lease land gives us a good feel as to where to recommend our pheasant hunters hunt that includes the better land within our Iowa pheasant hunting lease land region.
Such pheasant hunt recommendation are not limited to Iowa and some may find that we recommend our Kansas leases over that of Iowa.
The primary Iowa pheasant habitat is the brush filled dry drains and creeks running through crop fields. The same Iowa habitat that hold roosters hold quail as well.
A challenge the low ground contours of this part of the Iowa includes that many of the best upland bird spots are not visible from the road. This leaves many places un-hunted as some pheasant hunters will only hunt what they can see from their truck. For those that are willing to walk each private land spot from corner post to corner post they will be rewarded with some very good covey action with pheasant interspersed.
A value point for those that want to maximize their bird dog's experience through the season is to hunt the varied habitats of the three states MAHA leases land. The ability to hunt an upland bird dog on low drains, crop field edge, high prairie grass and the brushy draw will develop a dog's ability to identify target habitat. This will make the dog better within each of the habitat types than if he were to be hunted solely on one type of terrain.
Getting bird dogs on wild birds for the do it yourself hunter is what it is all about.
Typical, average, every day self guided hunters make up the Association. No gang hunts with piles of dead pen raised birds in front of an outfitter's road sign.
The lease acreage in this state is limited due to a lack of pressure. As hunters increase the demand in our lease areas the acreage will be expanded. Currently quail hunters prefer Missouri and pheasant hunters, Kansas.
This limited hunter pressure may seem in contrast to the predominance that Iowa pheasant receives in magazine articles. However, within our Association not all of our self guided hunters are upland bird hunters. We also have deer, turkey and waterfowl hunters. Plus many of our pheasant hunters come from a multitude of states and are not composed of solely local hunters. Have a read of our do it yourself or self guided pheasant hunts.
Here's one of Kevin's dog Libby. It was a miserable day with fog and drizzle, but the habitat was superb. The blood her shoulders was from retrieving a rooster pheasant....
That night the snow melted and we had to stick to the gravel roads. Plenty of birds, we just didn't hunt all day...