zubba

I'm in my eleventh year of gun hunting and nineth of bowhunting and I've seen and dealt with a lot of things, but not this one. This weekend is the opening day of shotgun season in Iowa. I just moved to Iowa, so this is my first year hunting it (I used to live in Wisconsin).

I have the opportunity to hunt two different properties. One of the properties has betterstructure for deer vs. the other piece of property but I wonder about 'the dogs'. When I walked around the property with the landowner, he brought his six dogs. They aren't poodles, these are 1/2 pitbull dogs and the run crazy through the land chasing everything. I seen them chase squirrels on the ground up a tree, the chased coon, they actually caught a coon and killed it. The landowner said he walkes the dogs around the woods 3-4 times a week.

So my question is: how do you think this affects the deer? Do you think they are used to it? Avoid the property? Do you think it is worth hunting opening morning?

I have to add that I gained access to this land a week before opening day, so other than walking around with the landowner, I didn't get a chance to scout and look for sign myself.

So what do you think?

samuel.entrekin

i've had a lot of dealings with dogs everywhere i hunt. bottom line in my experience, if the dogs are in the woods, you aint shooting deer. its going to depend on the size of the property, and how much he lets the dogs run free at there leisure. ive hunted properties where ive shot deer 75 yds from a dog pen where 30 hounds holler their heads off all day. but those deer were used to it, and the owner never ran his dogs on that land. ive also hunted properties where neighboring dog hunters ran their dogs through occassionally, and you might as well stay at camp. I dont know your exact situation, but from what ive heard, id focus more on staying away from dogs. Good Luck though!

tj_cubin

the question is are there deer? have you seen any sign?