Robert L E

I was 16 years old before I saw my first deer in Iowa 41 years ago. I was probably over 20 when I saw my first turkey and I just saw my first otter three or four years ago.

Is hunting better or worse? That depends on what you are talking about now, doesn't it?

In my lifetime deer have gone from less than 10,000 to over 300,000.

We used to have very good snow goose flights through central Iowa but now the flyway for them is farther West and I don't see the masses. Is goose hunting worse? No. Canada geese have more than filled the void. There were almost no local geese when I was a kid, now the are thousands and when the Canadian canadas come down we have even more. Canadas fly in smaller groups and are easier to hunt than snows and they are bigger too. Goose hunting is much better.

There were exactly zero wild turkeys in Iowa when I was a kid. Now there are so many farmers ask you to kill them all because of the crop damage.

If you hunt with a trap, there were no otters then and bobcats were only rumored to be around. I saw a beaver in about 1965 and my dad argued with me saying that there were none in Iowa. He even showed me a book that said they were extinct in Iowa. I told him it was a little one and he said I saw a muskrat but when I explained that I saw it on land going down into the water and that I didn't know muskrats had wide flat tails, he relented. Sightings became common after that. They are now often a problem as they do a lot of crop damage. They make dams out of corn stalks.

Pheasant and duck hunting have good times and bad depending on a lot of factors from the weather to farming practices. Pheasant hunting is a little worse than in the mid 1960's and duck hunting is about the same.

Quail hunting, which used to be great in Southern Iowa, is quite a bit worse.

Coyote hunting is better, rabbits tends to be worse. Squirrel hunting is better mostly because fewer people hunt small game.

Over all there are many fewer hunters BUT the ones there are are starting to restrict access more by buying land just for hunting. Access is still pretty easy to find for free though because the farmers hate the deer, geese, and turkeys.

Over all hunting is much, much better than when I was a kid.


Bob

BTW- My father grew up on a farm in Southern Iowa near where we hunt. I think that he NEVER saw a deer on the farm he grew up on and I think he probably saw his first deer in Iowa after he got back from the Pacific at the end of WWII. He didn't answer his phone or I would know for sure.

GRIZZLYMAN

I would say it is better because when I was a kid back in the sixties and early seventies, if you saw a couple of deer in a season (only one week back then) you were fortunate. Today, the season is longer (five month bow season in Ark),I see more deer, I see more quality bucks, and I believe the deer are healthier (based on field dressing over a hundred deer from 1973 through 2007).

shed33

worse... more pressure, two month long rifle season, out of statersand or road hunters driving orparked on every corner during rifle.. Hunters getting shot and killed by other hunters almost every year here now..

IMO Its all about generating $ for Idaho's DNR.. Easy over the counter process and tags...Easy access, lots of public lands and everyone kills any deer they see with antlers..

The only saving grace here is simply the big woods/thickcountry that is too rugged and too steep for the average joe to hunt.. Its too much work...If we didnt have this type terrain.. the elk and deer wouldn't stand a chance in therifle seasons. Thankfully the savvy critters learn to hide out and retreat in the steep and hard to get to hangouts..

Bowhunters dont put a dent in the whitetails here, its too tough of bowhunting outside of the rut which the majority ofarcheryseasons fall...which explains year in and year out the very low success rates on whitetails with bow and arrow.

I'd like to see a quota put on out of state licenses and restrictions on killing baby bucks and bulls. NOT.....its never gonna happen... We have plenty of cow elk and does that could be harvested instead of baby bulls and bucks for the meat..

125py

in Illinois there are more big bucks around, but less land to hunt on....so its better but worse

MeanV2

There is a great deer herd in IL currently, but if you are like me and don't own any ground it has become increasingly hard every year to get access to ground that has any kind of privacy. For instance the one 80 acres I have permission to hunt is hunted by 3 other bowhunters, and 3 slug hunters.
Not crying, I'm glad to have it as well asanother couple of spots to hunt. It's just a change in the times.
I used to have access to several hundred acres to Bowhunt and never saw another Bowhunter all season

Dan

125py

same here

tsoc

Worse in my area of NYS (catskill mountains) The deer populations are way down,the forever wild no logging on state land has led to over mature forests with no consistent food source which has forced the majority of the deer down to lower elevations where they are more visable but most often unhuntable because of the them being in close proximity to homes or being on land which is now owned in most instances by metropolitan NY second homeowners most of which have no understanding and/or appreciation for hunting.
The significant decrease in huntable private land coupled with these other variables have led to much worse hunting in my opinion.
It was common when I was a kid to see fields in the evening with 50 to 75 deer in them,the same fields today will have one tenth of that.

Kid

Like a lot of others i'm old enough to remember when just seeing a Deer was exciting enough to tell everyone you knew about it. From that stand point things are much better. That having been said, my State's reputation has grown to the point that it has pretty much ruined the deer hunting here.

chris2216

In Ohio there are way more deer than when I started hunting in the 1960's. In that reguard it is much improved. There are also lots more posted signs and getting permission to hunt private land had also become very hard to do. I would still have to say the Deer hunting is many times better than years ago. I can remember getting excited if we found deer tracks.

Talondale

Depends on which species. Deer and turkey? Definitely better. Quail? not even close, much worse.