#iowa upland hunting | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ryanmullinshoboken · 3 years ago

Text

The States That Will Have the Best Fishing and Hunting Opportunities in 2022

In Ryan Mullins Hoboken’s opinion, the best states for hunting and fishing in 2022 will be determined by a variety of variables, including the proportion of the population who hunts and the availability of public land. Hunting customs and rules are also considered. To hunt lawfully in the United States, you must first get a hunting license. The minimum age to acquire a license varies by state, and you must complete a hunter safety education course before receiving a license.

The Ocean State boasts several fishing places, including the famed Ninigret Pond near Charlestown, the state's biggest coastal salt pond. Other famous fishing locations in Hawaii include the Kailua Kona Fishing Pier and Keahou Harbor. In addition to being a subtropical state, Florida is one of the top selling states for powerboats, although it ranks well below the other states in terms of Cost and Supplies. In Florida, fishing permits are more costly, and fishing equipment stores are few.

The Black Hills area is home to a diverse range of species, including moose, deer, and bear. Large lakes and cold-water streams teem with trout, largemouth bass, pike, and panfish. Whitetail deer, Merriam's turkey, and prairie dogs wander the hills all year. In addition to these species, hunters may also discover antelope, the majority of which are captured using archery.

South Carolina is a lovely state with a wonderful climate. The state provides a less dry transition between Kansas and Illinois, making it an ideal vacation destination. Another popular site in the area is the lake. Missourians enjoy the state's rivers and woodlands as playgrounds. Johnson Shut-Ins State Park offers rocky outcroppings and leisurely river floats.

Ryan Mullins Hoboken pointed out that when it comes to upland bird hunting, South Dakota reigns supreme, but Idaho is not to be overlooked. In this state, you may bag up to six different species in a single day. Idaho has almost a million deer. For big-game hunters, the state is home to some monster whitetail bucks. Waterfowl hunters should take advantage of the chance to hunt ducks along the Illinois River. Wildlife abounds, from ruffed grouse to wolves.

The Sierra Nevada Mountains encircle central California's fishing hotspot. Smallmouth and walleyes love the New River and its tributaries. The Mississippi Delta may compete with adjacent Arkansas as a wintering habitat for waterfowl. The Delta National Forest has a number of state wildlife management areas and national wildlife refuges. It also has some of the country's biggest game birds. Those that like big game can try visiting Cody in New York.

Iowa has a thriving deer population. Its nearly 300,000 acres of public property make it a great location for hunting giant bucks. Non-resident hunters, on the other hand, must join a lottery and acquire preference points to be able to buy a buck tag. If you have the patience and determination to wait, you will be rewarded with a trophy buck. The only catch? It's a huge one if you don't have a license.

Louisiana is home to some of the best waterfowl hunting in the country. The marshes in south Louisiana are renowned as "America's Wetland." The Chenier Plain supports up to nine million ducks. The Sabine and Lacassine national wildlife refuges in the state's south are accessible via shallow-running duck boats. The state is home to some of the nation's greatest migrating bird populations.

According to Ryan Mullins Hoboken, Kansas has an abundance of public land and game animals. The state boasts about 55,000 acres of public property, and three counties frequently score high on B&C buck rankings. Its famed lakes Marion and Moultrie are also just a short drive away. The Francis Marion National Forest, which has over a quarter million acres of public property, is another fantastic spot to go hunting. This well-known hunting site is just a short drive from Bend.

0 notes

usfwspacific · 7 years ago

Text

Seasons of the Hunt: Part II of our Series on the Enigmatic Hungarian Partridge

By Dan Magneson, USFWS Fisheries Biologist

Editor’s note: As a part of National Hunting and Fishing Day (Sept. 23, 2017) and Public Lands Day (Sept. 30, 2017), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Region is highlighting hunting, fishing and public lands, as well as the importance of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. Be sure to read part one of Dan’s story here.

Photo credit: gwbf.org

SPRING

The covey has disintegrated, with the young from the previous year having paired off and formed strong monogamous bonds with Huns from other coveys. If they are both still alive, the original parents will stay together and start yet another new family. If one has since died, however, the survivor will readily form a pair bond with a different mate.

If the Hun is like a feathered cheetah when it comes to speed, then they are like a feathered rabbit when it comes to reproducing themselves!

The nest site is usually chosen in sparser dried stems of taller grass intermixed among the stalks of broadleaf weed cover consisting of the previous year’s dead growth and thus creating a light canopy overhead; hay and alfalfa fields that received mowing the previous year are virtually never chosen as a nesting site. Huns have a decided propensity for nesting in strips of cover along fencelines and in wide ditches along roadsides, possibly a function of their spending so much of their time along the edges of the adjacent fields.

Depending somewhat on the latitude, the great majority of the nesting will take place from around Memorial Day to the first day of the official start of summer at the solstice; both the male and female are devoted parents and will actively defend the nest.

The female constructs a simple ground nest while the male stands guard. That task completed, she will typically lay from 16 – 18 buff-olive eggs (although there are occasionally white specimens) and sometimes as many as 22 eggs, by far the most of any gamebird in North America and in fact among the most of any bird on earth.

This, coupled with and enhanced by extremely good early brood rearing conditions, explains what enables the Hun to generate such steeply-sharp population spikes in certain years and explains why coveys may then be unexpectedly encountered in areas where you traditionally have never seen them.

Normally, the Hun is much less subject to mortality from predation during winter weather than are most other upland gamebirds – except predators can and often do exact a heavier toll during horrifically-bad winter weather of exceptionally long duration.

But they have an even greater Achilles Heel, whereupon their numbers really take it on the chin: above and beyond anything else, especially extended periods of cold and wet conditions early in a chick’s life can be deadly and very severely depress Hun numbers in the coming autumn; the importance of warm and dry conditions to the very young one-and-a-half inch tall chicks cannot be emphasized enough. So please, no rain dances now!

As the chicks continue to grow toward maturity, they become less and less associated with cover that has a canopy overhead.

Outside of this acutely-vulnerable period of their lives, I would expect that Hun populations would do better in dry and droughty years in the more easterly portions of their North American range, and conversely do better in moister than normal conditions in the generally more arid westerly parts of their range.

Photo: Hunting for huns in Montana. Photo credit: Hank Shaw

SUMMER

The female carefully conceals the eggs with vegetation whenever she briefly departs, and by now the last of the later clutches will hatch out in July, and insects are of paramount importance to the hungry chicks at this time of year; the high protein levels are necessary to fuel their rapid rate of growth and development.

AUTUMN

In the dryfarmed prairie regions, such as North Dakota, to be consistently successful in the early hunting season look for the birds along the grassy fringes between the wheat stubble and neighboring Siberian elm and Russian olive shelterbelts, or back-and-forth along the margins of other relatively-light cover types bordering the wheat stubble. The Hun coveys will be comprised mostly of inexperienced and naïve young-of-the-year birds, affording you closer shots and more opportunity to flush them again since they generally won’t go very far before landing. Their early season behavior always reminded me a great deal of hunting bobwhites along the osage-orange hedgerows back in my native southwest Iowa.

Photo credit: Donald Jones, Montana FWP

Composed at its core of immediate family members, falling in with this central covey along the way are otherwise-unpaired adult Huns.

Besides watching them in order that you can go pursue them again, there is another reason – if you have shot at them. Sometimes a bird you thought you had missed or barely “tickled” suddenly drops from flight deader than yesterday’s news, or you see a bird land short of where the rest of the covey put down. You owe it to your quarry to try to get these otherwise-wasted birds into your bag.

Huns will commonly feed early in the morning and again late in the afternoon; food is plentiful, so it doesn’t take them long to get their fill. Then they will loaf during midday in the vicinity of the edges of the fields. In wheat country, their diet may be almost entirely comprised of the kernels of this grain, along with sprouts of volunteer plants.

Like a big ol’ trophy bucket-mouthed bass near an old submerged stump, Huns seem to orient to certain features in an otherwise homogenous landscape. That elevated knoll or hillock or that lone bush or rock pile out in the wheat stubble are good spots to focus your efforts upon, as are abandoned farm machinery and implements in old ranch junkyards and the like. I remember once hunting an ocean of wheat stubble, and the only feature different was an old Christmas tree that had been dumped out there. And that was right where I found a big covey of Huns.

You may be able to flush the same covey twice or maybe three times, and very rarely four times. Huns really stick together, and the first flush is likely to be straight toward some landmark familiar to that covey. The second flush will likely see them veering in something of an arc. The countryside may look fairly featureless to you, but rest assured it is not to them. If you flush them a third time and at the limits of their home range, they might well turn and come right back over your head in order to return to familiar turf – which is quite often the same spot you originally found them, or near to it, and thus demonstrating that they really are rooted or anchored to a certain home range.

If you do succeed in fragmenting the covey into singles and doubles, these are the birds to pursue because they will likely hold much tighter and subsequently flush at much closer range than is likely with the remaining bulk of the covey

In the sagebrush country of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and the far northern portions of Nevada and Utah where irrigated agriculture is more the rule, again look for Huns in areas adjacent to stubble fields of wheat, rye, barley and other small grain crops. Much of the time this will be along the steeper foothills next to the flatter cultivated farm fields. Mostly grassy cover interspersed with dots of occasional sagebrush is ideal, and don’t forget to check the grassy heads of basins and especially the deeply sun-shielded and sometimes surprisingly-moist creases between hills, and especially on the very warm days of the early season. The Huns can find cooler shade among the broader-leafed shrubbery, and the damp conditions are conducive for attracting insects and also for growing succulent shoots and tender grass tips; Huns are always partial to a meal of fresh salad greens, no matter what the season.

I like best the places where the border along the sagebrush and wheat stubble fields really weaves and wanders a lot, where the wheat is surrounded on three sides by sagebrush and grass or conversely those lone and long fingers of sagebrush and grass protruding far, far out into the wheat stubble.

Keep an eye peeled for the places the Huns take dust baths, and the odd loose feather or two confirming that. And look for piles of droppings indicating where they have roosted; the individual droppings are pointed at one end and broad at the other, looking like a miniature green sugar cone with a scoop of white vanilla ice cream.

If you shoot a double-barreled gun, a fast 20-gauge with a #7 ½ load in a barrel choked improved cylinder and the other barrel choked modified with a #6 load should do a fine job in most instances.

Insects such as beetles, grasshoppers, crickets and ants will continue to be taken by Huns, but the carbohydrates and lipids found in grains have by now begun progressively making up more and more of the diet as the overnight freezing-frosty temperatures causes the insects to die off for the year.

But there are those coveys of Huns who live out their entire lives never once feeding on cultivated, domesticated cereal grains from farm fields.

In the Sawtooth National Forest south-southeast of Twin Falls, Idaho I used to hunt mule deer in a rather pristine, broad valley that was, as best I recall, either entirely ungrazed by cattle or else only very lightly grazed. I probably put up more coveys of Huns down there more often than anywhere else I’ve ever been, and they were miles and miles from the nearest agricultural areas. They were absolutely thriving out there in that desolate country. So don’t ignore those vast holdings of public lands that are managed by the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, the public lands adjacent to the big western reservoirs managed by the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and those portions of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-managed National Wildlife Refuges which may be open to hunting.

There are often steep hills associated with these wilder areas, and the birds usually flush downhill and then hook off one direction or the other towards the end of their flight. I don’t think it is a deliberate and diabolical attempt on their part to better elude your finding them again; instead I think they are just trying to reduce their air speed in order to make a soft and easy landing. Don’t be too surprised if they subsequently start to slowly work their way up another hill. You can use the rough terrain to plot a quiet and more concealed approach and if you have a partner, one hunter can start working downhill from above them while the other starts working up the hill from a point just below where they originally landed. Watch especially any stragglers that flush late behind the main body of the covey; these birds often cut corners and take shortcuts to catch up, giving you a better idea of where they’ve landed if the flight of the main covey has been obscured by an obstacle.

But I’ll tell you, when it comes to pursuing opportunities to make multiple flushes in steeper country, don’t be surprised if the Huns wear you out before you’ve worn them out.

As autumn grows long in the tooth, the Huns will have wised up considerably, becoming in many cases ultra-wary and hyper-alert. It is about now they begin to start flushing so wildly, far out of shotgun range, and start showing you just how well they can twist and turn on a dime once in flight. Oddly enough, Huns do tend to generally hold well for a pointing dog – provided it doesn’t press them too closely. The ideal Hun dog is one with the endurance of the Energizer Bunny, and that casts to-and-fro across the field very widely, but is solid as a statue when it goes on point, allowing you plenty of time to get there. But don’t dilly-dally with these now-skittish Huns! Hunt the dog into the wind, and don’t be afraid to experiment if need be: circling far out to the side and around the covey, then coming in directly at the dog, sometimes perplexes the Huns just long enough for a decent shot at them. A hawk whistle may help freeze running birds in their tracks; to imitate a hawk, some hunters will go so far as to tie a dark helium balloon to their belts in hopes of likewise helping to pin the Huns down into place.

I’d stick with all #6 loads now, and consider moving up to a 12-gauge shotgun. You never know for sure what Huns might decide to do on a given day, whether to flush nice and close or way out there beyond gun range. But I think I’d lean more toward a modified or full choke, though, as it is more likely to be the latter case.

WINTER

I used to go to college in Bottineau, North Dakota, which is located in the far northern (and central) part of the state. A blizzard would be howling and wind-driven snow would be coming in thin, powdery waves across the ground, the mercury standing at far below zero.

Yet the Huns would be out scurrying around and feeding right in the midst of it, so impervious that they seemed imbued with immunity to bitter cold.

For such a small bird, the winter survival skills of the Hun border on the incredible; they are absolutely unfazed by the same ferocious blizzards that can lay waste to an entire population of pheasants.

Their habit of forming a warm roosting ring is part of it: with snow lingering on the ground, one author spoke of repeatedly finding different overnight roosts used by the same covey of nine Huns. They had always very consistently packed into an area smaller than what a single pheasant takes up.

But unlike either pheasants or bobwhite quail, if conditions get bad enough, then the Huns will use the blanket of snow itself as insulating cover, readily burrowing down into it to escape especially severe and otherwise deadly conditions.

The wind may whip up some big snowdrifts, but other areas are commonly kept largely snow-free by the very same winds, which gives the Huns a place to forage for food.

But if there is a fairly uniform and persisting cover of snow of four inches or more, the Huns will start to utilize woody cover, as Aldo Leopold noted in 1931: “Hungarians come nearer being able to get along without cover than pheasants or quail, but during snow they do require some heavy grass, weeds, or standing corn.”

In the northwestern quarter of the state of Iowa, it’ll be wild plum thickets for certain any time there is one in the Hun’s home range, just like with the bobwhite quail in the bottom two tiers of that state’s southernmost counties.

In the Dakotas, it will likely be stands of lilac and caragana.

Out here further to the west, it’s going to be shrubs such as snowberry, hawthorn, chokecherry and buffalo-berry.

Mimicking fox hunters is a viable option, whereupon you don white coveralls and wrap your gun in white tape. You might consider packing binoculars tucked down inside your coveralls to keep them from fogging up or flopping against your chest. Neither food nor length of daylight is as plentiful now, so looking even out into the very middle of fields such as wheat stubble becomes more worthwhile as the Huns are now generally spending a greater proportion of the daylight hours feeding. One thing that will help you after a new snow is that now there are fresh Hun tracks with which to betray their presence. Scanning far ahead will help you plot an ambush; if you don’t see the Huns actively moving about, then look for “dirt clods” sitting out there and protruding up from the snow.

Also don’t forget the effects of the wind chill factor. Look for Huns to escape the cold winds by locating themselves on the lee sides of hills, steep and sheer protective creek banks, and also man-made structures such as abandoned farmstead buildings as well as lone grain bins and machine sheds. If such areas also receive warming rays of sunshine and the thinner areas of snow melts off to boot, so much the better. The wind can work to your benefit by better masking your approach, but bear in mind that the now-nervous Huns will compensate by relying on their vision just that much more when conditions diminish the effectiveness of their sense of hearing.

As in all seasons, if there is a spring or seep where sprouts continue to grow from the unfrozen mud, they are worth checking out for Huns.

I definitely would go with a 12 gauge shotgun in the winter, and preferably one with a PolyChoke as you again never quite know at just what range at they will choose to flush on any given day. I usually like a more tightly-choked barrel with a #6 shell in the chamber, and I follow that up with #5 shells in the magazine for successive shots at probable longer ranges.

But if the snow is especially deep and worse yet covered by a thick glaze of ice for a prolonged period, the Huns will become desperately hungry, and then begin approaching gravel roadsides, livestock feedlots, silos, and farmsteads in general, searching for barer ground anywhere where they might locate some food. But no ethical hunter would ever exploit such a pitiful plight.

Late in the winter, after the season closes and the weather warms and the snow melts off, the males will begin squaring off with one another and engage in ritualized fighting, with the victor getting to stay where he is and the vanquished bird having to leave.

Female Huns are more aggressive during this period than the females of most other gamebird species, and will decisively lower the boom on any other females caught flirting with their chosen mate. And which male Huns are the favored mates? The ones seen as leaders within the covey and also those who seem to maintain a state of heightened alert.

The cycle of a new Hun generation is beginning anew.

SUMMING IT ALL UP

Coupled with the topography, the direction and the angle and the intensity of the sun along with prevailing weather and wind patterns combine to create a seasonally-changing mosaic of different plant species and ultimately plant communities of varying density. This in turn provides the Huns a home range in which they can capitalize upon the best opportunities for their continued survival and perpetuation of their own kind.

For you to be a consistently-successful hunter of these birds, you’ll need to develop the ability to discern these differences and how they interact; that in turn will get you pointed in the proper direction and better narrow things down to just where the Huns are likely to be found on any given day during the changing seasons.

And all of this is alluring to a hunter, or should be, creating a charismatic aura and enticing you to try to take apart and figure out just what makes these birds tick.

The upside to learning in this big outdoor classroom is the generally grand and glorious scenery, the stunningly-spectacular sunrises and sunsets in this otherwise-austere landscape, the wild and sometimes surreal cloud formations, the weird and grotesque rock formations, the sego lily and Indian paintbrush, that old corral with those giant and golden cottonwoods, and all the solitude to be found in the American Outback that is Hun Country.

It’s a classroom in which you will never become bored.

Best of Luck to you the reader during this hunting season and in all in your future Hun endeavors!

#iHuntBecause #HuntShootFish #hunting #conservation

4 notes · View notes

tbcpress-blog · 4 years ago

Text

Iowa 2020 Pheasant Survey Shows Game Bird Numbers Up

Posted by TBC Press on 09/08/20 Iowa’s recently completed annual pheasant survey is great news for hunters – statewide, Iowa averaged 20.2 birds per 30-mile route, up significantly from 2019, with six of the nine survey regions averaging more than 20 pheasants per route, the most since 2007. Pheasant hunters should expect significantly better pheasant numbers in 2020. Pheasant hunting this fall could be some of the best the state has seen in a decade. 2020-21 Upland bird hunting seasons are... READ MORE

#hunting #hunting news #outdoors #outdoor news #outdoor sports #upland bird hunting #wingshooting #hunting with dogs #pheasant hunting #quail hunting #dove hunting #IA hunting news #IA upland bird hunting #IA dove hunting #IA quail hunting #IA pheasant hunting

0 notes

thewildyolo · 6 years ago

Video

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Yolo Freeman ⚡️ (@thewildyolo)

instagram

What happens when ten women from all over North America come together to get a taste of upland game hunting? They build life long relationships, develop new skills, and create smiles for miles! Thank you for making this a great event @aprilvokey, @outdoorpris, @nikkiboxler, @rachelbee333, @thewildyolo, @meganrenee1, @carriebeth53, @beccaskinner, @daniavizzi, & Teresa! • @brownellsinc ❤ Family! #brownells #hunt #hunter #uplandgame #pheasants #browning #winchester #orvis #danner #america #iowa #travel #fun #fellowship #positive (at Brownells, Inc.) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrBFIsIhcLE/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1zhffbs3lts7

#brownells #hunt #hunter #uplandgame #pheasants #browning #winchester #orvis #danner #america #iowa #travel #fun #fellowship #positive

0 notes

investmart007 · 6 years ago

Text

IOWA | Badger Lake offers an easy nature stop off I-29

New Post has been published on https://is.gd/GeVUJO

IOWA | Badger Lake offers an easy nature stop off I-29

Whiting, Iowa – Sitting not quite halfway between Sioux City and Council Bluffs with I-29 going right through it, it’s easy to think that Badger Lake Wildlife Area would be overrun with bird watchers, duck hunters, kayakers and nature lovers 24/7/365. While it does get busy when the duck migration is on, many days the only visitor is a wayward cormorant or a neighbor stopping by to wet a line.

This quiet but highly visible area is home to one of the lesser known historic campsites of Lewis and Clark’s Expedition and work is underway to transform much of the area back to grasslands like those the famous explorers encountered while searching for a direct water route to the Pacific Ocean.

Doug Chafa, wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, is responsible for managing the 1,100 acres of timber, upland, prairie and wetlands that makes up Badger Lake. He has been working to re-establish diverse prairies where fields of brome grass had grown stale and where trees spread their influence over the grasslands.

Chafa has converted three locations with a prairie plant mix to benefit monarchs and regal fritillaries butterflies, grassland birds and pheasants and quail. The conversion takes time and can be deceiving, even to the trained eye, but after doing it for 20 years, Chafa knows what to expect.

“The first year, the plants put all their energy in root development so the fields look like a weedy mess. The second year the plants begin to focus upward and after we burn it in year three, the prairie just explodes,” he said.

Walking through the first year prairie after the late summer mowing, the familiar pattern is evident. A little purple prairie clover is over here. A little golden rod is over there. This field is next to a plum patch that will provide excellent winter escape to the prairie wildlife.

While much of the focus has been on prairies, part of the management plan includes maintaining 18 small food plots rotating from corn to soybeans and then idle to allow it to come up in annual weeds. The annual weeds attract bugs, produce a lot of seeds and provide cover for chicks. Only four of the fields will be idled at one time.

Duck hunting hotspot

Badger Lake is a linear series of wetlands connected by culverts under roads that provides opportunities for kayaking and fishing, but is best known for high quality duck hunting.

Hunters come from Plymouth, Crawford, Pottawattamie, Monona and Woodbury counties, and from Nebraska. Chafa regularly gets calls from a Shelby County hunter when duck season is open.

“He does everything he can to get his son out and his first call is over here for what’s going on at either Badger Lake or Tieville Bend,” he said.

Want an inside tip? If it’s a migration day and the wind is strong enough out of the northwest, ducks will pile in to the marsh east of I-29 in the portion of the slough that turns from south to the west regardless of the number of hunters that are there.

There is a 200-acre refuge on the north end west of I-29. Badger Lake is in a closed goose zone, meaning goose hunting is not allowed

There are three boat ramps on different segments to allow larger boats to access the wetlands. In response to hunter request, the boat ramp areas were deepened and gravel added to improve access.

Birding Loop

Badger Lake, along with Blue Lake and Tieville Bend, is part of popular birding loop. The area hosts forest species, wetland species, grassland species, and has a tremendous spring snow goose migration

Purple gallinules, a secretive marsh bird, have been seen here. A few years ago a pair of young osprey started to build a nest structure but did not nest. The pair hasn’t been seen since. Bald eagles nested on the north shore in 2016 and 2017 but a wind storm knocked out the nest in 2017 and the eagles have not returned.

Know where you are Visitors need to be aware of their location to avoid trespassing on private land. The public land follows the lake closely and is along part of I-29.

Etcetera

Crappie fishing here can be boom or bust, Chafa said. This past spring, it was boom.

Badger Lake attracts photographers in the fall, and dog walkers and exercisers use the field lanes. “It’s pretty cool to get people out here experiencing nature,” he said.

SOURCE; Originally published September 11, 2018 by IOWADNR.GOV

#Badger Lake #Iowa #TodayNews

0 notes