Iowa Hunts
Pheasant
Quail
Upland Bird Hunter Interests
| LocationIowa pheasant hunting across south central Iowa in the Grand River Watershed bringing the bird holding combination of many brushed drainages cutting through large rolling grain crop fields. Each hunter is welcomed to hunt any of our private land farms. SeasonIowa's 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 and twice the quail in Missouri and twice the pheasants in Kansas. 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. Private Hunting LandMid-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.
Winter's Effect
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. Spring ImpactsWe 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. 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. |
