Self Guided Iowa Quail Hunts Continued

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Iowa Hunting

Traveling Hunters

MAHA Iowa quail hunting lease land offers the traveling do it yourself quail hunter a chance to explore new areas and break up his quail hunting trip by hunting at various quail regions along the route.

This option is also is a chance to shorten up the driving distance and break it up with a hunt of a day or two and then move on to other habitat types and additional birds.

For most hunters the chance to hunt a different area, Iowa quail habitat and weather condition is exactly the variety desired over that of returning to the same fields on each hunt. This bit of adventure simply makes for an overall more enjoyable hunt.

What is nicer than seeing two young dogs working this well? This is a small snapshot of what a dry drainage looks like for some of the better habitat. This one runs through a corn field. This is not "ditch" hunting as many have described Iowa's roadside bird hunts of those too cheap to make a better experience from hunting the better habitat within the farm.

Bobwhite Quail populations allow for a day's limit for those with the dog power and desire to walk. Iowa quail habitat runs for miles along the drainages of the upper Grand River watershed in Southern Iowa.

This picture happens to be from the last hunt of the season during the last week. The dog, Belle, was 11 years old in this picture.

Least Used

Iowa has a split ending for its upland bird season ending the pheasant season in early January when its seasonal upland bird hunting license expires while allowing quail hunting until January 31. What occurs is that most do not hunt the quail only middle to late January period.

This time period, in our most northern of the three states of leases, typically allows for colder dog friendly weather and plenty of tree covered drainages to block any wind making for a higher probability of better hunting conditions.

This Iowa quail habitat may be contrasted to the big open of Kansas even with its greater abundance of pheasants and greater probability of higher wind speeds. And, very few quail hunters hunt during this period as most by this point of the three month season have walked and hunted plenty and their intensity has waned.

An additional Iowa quail hunting motivational degradation is the psychological block of having to buy another license at the season's end (pheasant in early January) even though it is good for the subsequent fall as well.

For those that truly want to quail hunt and do so when seeing another hunter is at its least probability this 21 day period is the time to be Iowa quail hunting.

Jon,

Went on a four day quail hunt to [location deleted] counting arrival and departure days. The weather was warm, dry and not much wind. On the better mornings we averaged 5 birds in the bag taking anywhere from 1 to 3 quail per stop down to zero on the hot days. Each day we had one farm of no birds and on all others we either had quail, pheasant or both. My dog does much better in cold weather as he has a good standoff on pheasants and always does well on quail regardless of the conditions. During warm weather I observed he cuts the scent cone too close to allow the roosters to hold for point.

 

I could have taken more pictures of the dog with quail, but as it was warm we dressed all out as soon as we made it back to the truck. If I had sent in all the tailgate pictures they simply look like the same quail over again. The point pictures I sent will show better the amount of action we encountered.

 

Thanks for all you do. Having knocked on doors most of my life I can hardly believe how you are able to get so much land.

Jason

 

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