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DNR Season setting meeting TONIGHT

Got to the site in Tiffin at 1835 and the doors were locked. There were about 8 trucks in the parking lot and 2 of them were DNR. I knocked but nobody answered. I have been to several of these in the past but I have always been on time. I am not aware of a “no late entry policy” but I do remember issues at other venues with keeping the doors open.

Not that I’m bashing on the ‘Stache, but the ICN was one of his babies. Seems they could figure out how to keep the doors unlocked.

And why was I late? Work.

Can anybody report on what was covered?
 
I left at 7:30 .
Ours in CB was dominated by waterfowl talk, most on same page on deer numbers and need to drop antler less tag numbers.
Lack of state owned pheasant habitat in Pottawattamie county( which is zero acres ).
A lot of interest in extending hunting opportunities for youth hunters.

Then more ducks,ducks,ducks. Nothing wrong with that.Very passionate waterfowl hunters in Iowa for sure.
 
I attended and the consensus seemed to be to reduce doe tags. Most thought that deer numbers were where they should be now. Some wanted youth turkey tags to carry over to the other seasons. There were a lot that wanted the duck season extended later. Dove season got a lot of praise. Increasing quotas for bobcat and otter was praised and requested that everyone be allowed one bobcat without quota and one or two otter without quota on a tag basis. It was mentioned that residency requirements should NOT be relaxed and governor tags should go to vets, not celebs. The school I went to only had one door unlocked. I can see where some folks might have tried to get in and left. The consensus seemed to be that the late rifle season in Southern Iowa needed to go away or be limited to private land only. It was really funny that the only person in favor of keeping the late rifle season was a man from Northern Iowa. I guess he likes driving down and shooting deer with a rifle. Then he can go home and not worry about how many deer we have left down here. Another guy seemed to think that his early muzzy tag should be good for all seasons if he could not get it filled. That got a pretty good chuckle in our room. Another guy wanted to be able to shoot redtailed hawks. That also got a good chuckle. One attendee offered to write a cookbook.

Most of the 19 towns had a handful of people in attendance. I thought it was a real shame that Polk county only had one person attend. Especially since many of them seem to be quite vocal on the internet.
 
I think the low attendance to these meetings are a shame. Many of the people that complain the loudest on the internet will not take the time to attend these meetings. Some will use the excuse they did not see it posted in time. It was posted on here last Friday and I will admit that many people have very busy schedules and finding the time is a problem for them. But come on people are you telling me only one person in Polk county heard about the meeting or only one person could find the time to attend? Down here in Creston it was not much better we had only 9 people other than DNR reps. and they were the same people we had last year.
I fear that after a while the DNR will decide there are not enough people that care about what happens with our wildlife and regulations and cancel the program altogeather. We need to show we care about whats going on and try to make a differance.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant and Thank you to all who attended and tried to attend tonight.
 
It was a statewide event last night on the ICN. There were 19 communities throughout the state that participated. Most people would not have to travel far to get to one of these meetings. It was really disgusting how few came out. Looks to me like not many guys have much to complain about next year if they dont get what they want.
 
I was at the Ottumwa meeting along with 4 DNR people and 3 other deer hunters. THAT WAS IT!! In our discussion we went over most of the things already listed. We talked about not being able to feed wild life (deer) for any reason, mainly trail cams from some time in August through February. We talked a little about crossbows, with only one attendee in favor of them, guess who, but I was supported by some of the DNR guys. We talked about actually eliminating the January late season completely and then maybe raising the price of a regular tag to help off set the revenue loss to the DNR. We all disagreed with the people who thought that any unfilled licenses should carry over to other seasons. Definitely not a good idea. If we want and expect the DNR to improve hunting and habitat and public hunting acres, we need to step up and help fund them! Two other sites all from the northern parts of the state actually wanted to reduce the calibers for rifle hunting to only .22 caliber. That one I could not follow any reasoning for trying to hunt deer with a rifle shooting only a 50 grain bullet designed to kill a 30 pound animal but wanting to kill a 200 pound deer. Some of the rounds could include the .222, .223, .220 swift, .221 fireball, and a 22 hornet. All classic deer rifles!!

The attendance for the whole state from what I saw was maybe 50 people not including the DNR reps at each site. There were many sites with only 2 or 3 people and like already pointed out Polk County had 1. How can that be when the DNR actually asked for OUR input?
 
bowmaker said:
I was at the Ottumwa.

The attendance for the whole state from what I saw was maybe 50 people not including the DNR reps at each site. There were many sites with only 2 or 3 people and like already pointed out Polk County had 1. How can that be when the DNR actually asked for OUR input?
Click to expand...

To me it says BIG trouble ahead. If I'm the DNR it looks very bad. They opened the forum to discuss ANYTHING and it fell on deaf ears across the state. It calls into question how serious the sportsman really are about managing the entire resource.

Kudos to those of you that attended and voiced your opinion regardless of what it was. At least you were there.
 
I spoke with one of the DNR guys about getting the time, date and locations out earlier so we might have better attendence and he said they give it to the media, but what they choose to do with it is beyond their control.
SO next year WE should attempt to help get the word out by posting it on all the web sights we belong to as soon as we can.
I will be contacting my CO next year in mid Feb. to try and get an earlier posting. Let's make attempt to improve our numbers next year.
 
It was posted here nearly a week ahead of time. That seems like enough notice to get more than one person from an area the size of Des Moines. Sorry to harp on Polk County, but my goodness that is a slap in the face to the DNR in my opinion.
 
I really wish they would do this on a saturday or something.. I bet there would be a lot more people.. I think the closest one to me is an hour away from the list I sa w.. pretty sad the biggest metro area in the stateonly produced one person
 
Next year maybe a little organizing to get at least one IBA member to attend each site. If for nothing else just a presence. Just a thought.
 
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