Buck Hollow Sporting Goods - click or touch to visit their website Midwest Habitat Company

HUNTERS PER SQUARE MILE OF TIMBER & HABITAT ACRE BY STATE…

Again. All the alleged data. Where are we going with this????? I will also argue Iowa has 37 hunters per square mile. Not a possible number. I havnt seen 37 people in 23 years hunting Iowa.
 
Last edited:
The overall numbers drop to 11/sq mi when you combine the timbered and nontimbered. Is it actually 165k hunters or just 165k tags sold. That’s almost 1700 hunters per county on avg and I can guarantee we don’t have close to that.

Iowa has 29.98 million acres of farmland. That equates to 46843 sq miles. Combine that with the #’s above and everything equates to approx 2.7 hunters per sq mile. Even that # seems high. Not counting the farm ground as hunted is going to make it all look artificially high tho.
 
Bucksnbears said:
Tried to makes sense of that but failed.

Ain't NO WAY in hell Mn has 16 hunters per square mile average.

NO WAY!!!
Click to expand...
The timbered land north of highway 2 in northern Minnesota receives significantly less pressure than the rest of the state, and there is A LOT of national/state forest land up there that is skewing the data. While it is "timbered", it is not anywhere near as good of hunting as the other more populated areas of the state that we think of when we talk deer hunting, and many of those areas are buck only leading people to shoot the first buck they see creating poor/undesirable hunting for people to travel that far for. Minnesota deer hunting north of highway 2 is very similar to the northern two thirds of Iowa. While there may be pockets of good/decent areas... it is for the most part void of deer and good deer hunting. If we removed that area of the state from the data we would be much higher on the list.
 
See- everyone in every region is shocked by this anywhere in the country BECAUSE: they see it through their lense of what they see in their tiny pocket or backyard. Seriously. MI guys will say “we have millions of hunters”…. But when you get to the UP for example or even regions in N mi - it’s super light for pressure.
On the other hand…. You get to southern iowa & most guys are like “dude, there’s more hunters than ever!!!! Every farm is hunted & hunted hard. Public is infested”.
N MN & N WI might seem like “hardly any hunters”. Go to southern parts “guys all over!!!!”
Iowa is packed guys. I don’t know where u guys are hunting in these areas without hunters. Heck, I have a 400 acre block east of me that literally gets 40+ hunters in there a year. Public by me, a 100 acre chunk, triple digit different people in there. Countless 100-200 acre chunks with multiple gun groups of 10-20 guys pushing it multiple seasons + different bow hunters & ML hunters.

& guys in iowa…. Go look at how much habitat these other states have….. it’s obscene!!!! Like, some states have literally, 8 times the amount of timber, 5x the deer & their hunter numbers might be triple what ours are. Ya- over the whole state, averaged out, they have less hunters!!!
Big expanses of “all corn & beans” in iowa… there is no deer guys. Like 0 or close to it. U have to have some form on timber or brush or marsh or CRP. & there’s huuuuuggggeee swaths, multiple counties, with wide open NOTHING except the rivers in those counties. Very few deer hunters or even deer to hunt. Most the deer hunters up there flock to the river areas or drive to the little timbered area.

Yes, this data is right. Or a darn good representation of a whole state. Every state has regions “with hardly any hunters” - iowa included!!!! Including Northern parts of WI, MN & MI or vast expanses in KS. Or even the mainly tillable regions in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc. Only iowa can claim to have: least amount of habitat, least amount of deer, least public & yes, for the little habitat we have, it does equate to the most hunters.

***I actually ran the math on one of my farms - which some folks who know the scoop might say “super light pressure”. It still comes out to like 12 deer hunters per sq mile in there between all the seasons.

If this is confusing at all…. Just look at the basics…. How much timber a state has & how many deer hunters. Just look at those raw basics

IMG_6165.jpeg
 
I can think of 11 guys in the 1/2 mile each direction of my place here at my home farm. That’s just what I know of. My Allamakee property, it really jumps up… I don’t think I’m really shocked by the numbers- but I’m used to the guys I guess.
 
newfarmer said:
I can think of 11 guys in the 1/2 mile each direction of my place here at my home farm. That’s just what I know of. My Allamakee property, it really jumps up… I don’t think I’m really shocked by the numbers- but I’m used to the guys I guess.
Click to expand...
Exactly!!!! How many farms in “warren county” or Guthrie, marion, Clayton, Boone- whatever - any hunters there where u go: this 640 acre section has landowners like a “40, 160, 80, 120, 100 & a 140”….. any scenario I know like that…. It’s usually 3-10 guys hunting each one of those pieces at some points or through out the year. If u are NOT seeing anywhere close to this, you are lucky. Please post a dot where u find these areas with so many less hunters ;).
I’ll give another example: I owned a 160 in the LEAST populated county in iowa. Had 4 bordering landowners in square mile. One had 2 gun groups come through & that had to be 20 guys. The section had maybe 6-8 bowhunters. 5-ish ML hunters. That’s fairly common & that’s in the least populated county in our state!!!!!!
with a smile on my face I’m literally defending Simple demographics & state forest data + deer hunters in each state. THAT, IMHO- is why it’s hard to change ANYTHING for the better in deer hunting…. Guys can’t even agree on how many hunters bought deer licenses & how much timber a state has!!!!! ;) :)
 
The reason the Iowa numbers are hard to believe is because in reality there are never that many hunters out during the same season. We do have 160,000 hunters BUT they are never actually there all at once. This is a HUGE difference when comparing WI,PA etc.. Those states have the listed amount participating during the same gun season. Our total includes all of the gun seasons and bow season. This doesn’t change how bad our habit to hunter ratio is but it does make a huge difference when it comes to hunting quality and overall pressure on the deer herd.

Think of the state/habitat as one giant deer drive (especially the gun seasons).. Who is going to be more effective at totally surrounding the deer and leaving little room for them to escape? One giant group hunting at once or a few small ones spread out over a few times? Having a group of 16 or so hunt it all at once with every escape route blocked or having a group of 5-6 hunt it? Even if the group of 5-6 hunts it twice there are still gaps for the deer to get out. Another scenario would be if I walked into my woods and scared the deer out they are going to run to my neighbors and since we all hunt the same season he shoots them. If we hunt different seasons the deer are safe. Having our split gun season and the additional muzzleloader seasons is absolutely key to keeping Iowa great. If we had regs like some of the other states we’d realize how little habitat there actually was in a hurry!
 
Last edited:
booneriverbucks said:
The reason the Iowa numbers are hard to believe is because in reality there are never that many hunters out during the same season. We do have 160,000 hunters BUT they are never actually there all at once. This is a HUGE difference when comparing WI,PA etc.. Those states have the listed amount participating during the same gun season. Our total includes all of the gun seasons and bow season. This doesn’t change how bad our habit to hunter ratio is but it does make a huge difference when it comes to hunting quality and overall pressure on the deer herd.

Think of the state/habitat as one giant deer drive (especially the gun seasons).. Who is going to be more effective at totally surrounding the deer and leaving little room for them to escape? One giant group hunting at once or a few small ones spread out over a few times? Having a group of 16 or so hunt it all at once with every escape route blocked or having a group of 5-6 hunt it? Even if the group of 5-6 hunts it twice there are still gaps for the deer to get out. Another scenario would be if I walked into my woods and scared the deer out they are going to run to my neighbors and since we all hunt the same season he shoots them. If we hunt different seasons the deer are safe. Having our split gun season and the additional muzzleloader seasons is absolutely key to keeping Iowa great. If we had regs like some of the other states we’d realize how little habitat there actually was in a hurry!
Click to expand...
That’s kinda every state now though. Most states have moved to 4-5 months of deer season with at least 5-7 different deer seasons in there. Youth, archery, gun, doe gun seasons, Muzzleloader, etc. No doubt in most states- gun is the big one. & how iowa divides guns up is genius.
Time afield data for any state is a tiny fraction of the actual season u are allowed to hunt.
 
Definitely high hunter numbers in Decatur co..It gets hunted and hunted hard. I’ve started looking in other less hunted counties and bought a place in SW Iowa. Much less hunting pressure there. In the heavily hunted well known counties it is very difficult to get bucks to maturity now and the better genetics they have, the less likely they are to survive to maturity. A 3 year old 160-170 doesn’t stand a chance in the heavily hunted areas.
 
Sligh1 said:
That’s kinda every state now though. Most states have moved to 4-5 months of deer season with at least 5-7 different deer seasons in there. Youth, archery, gun, doe gun seasons, Muzzleloader, etc. No doubt in most states- gun is the big one. & how iowa divides guns up is genius.
Time afield data for any state is a tiny fraction of the actual season u are allowed to hunt.
Click to expand...
Totally! Main point was showing how lucky we are!
Also interesting how many people I know in other states that think their hunting is way worse now that their hunting pressure is spread out for months (especially their gun hunting).. crossbows have hurt there too. Many “serious” guys have their main targets whacked before gun season and hardly go out any more even if they buy a license. Their fear of scaring deer to the neighbors outweighs their ambition to kill another one. It seems like this has created sanctuaries everywhere and has led to higher deer populations yet many people think their hunting is worse than it used to be.. With the higher populations come the even more liberalized regs.. Just keeps making things better for some and worse for others and still hasn’t done anything to control the deer population or improve the quality of the hunting overall. It’s a mess in some of those places.
 
Last edited:
booneriverbucks said:
Totally! Main point was showing how lucky we are!
Also interesting how many people I know in other states think their hunting is way worse now that their hunting pressure is spread out for months (especially their gun hunting).. crossbows have hurt there too. Many “serious” guys have their main targets whacked before gun season and hardly go out any more even if they buy a license. Their fear of scaring deer to the neighbors outweighs their ambition to kill another one. It seems like this has created sanctuaries everywhere and has led to higher deer populations yet many people think their hunting is worse than it used to be.. With the higher populations come the even more liberalized regs.. Just keeps making things better for some and worse for others and still hasn’t done anything to control the deep population or improve the quality of the hunting overall. It’s a mess in some of those places.
Click to expand...
Imagine going to 1 buck and a floating tag on how crowded it could get ‍♂️
 
newfarmer said:
Imagine going to 1 buck and a floating tag on how crowded it could get ‍♂️
Click to expand...
No kidding. One buck could be a disaster if the details aren’t worked out right! It could also be very very good!! This is my problem with talking about being a one buck state. It’s very easy to say you want to be one buck like Indiana,Kentucky, Kansas etc.. but then once the details of those state’s regs get broken down nobody wants any of their other regs. Are we even talking about a TRUE one buck state or a one buck state for some and not others depending on land ownership/urban tags/etc. Is it a true floating tag for all seasons like EVERY other one buck state or what? SO many variables to break down and getting hunters/legislature to come to a consensus on that will be tough. What will we really be left with? I have no doubt it could be very good. Could also be a complete mess and extremely crowded like you said. It’s almost not even worth debating until we actually know what we are fighting for/against. The devil is in the details! Unfortunately hunters being on the same board is not the whole battle either. We also have to keep the deer population at the goals determined by the dnr/legislature(lobbyists). As much as we hate a low deer population we could really hate regulations that could come from the wrong people thinking the deer population is too high. We’ve already seen some of this, it does get even worse tho! I have no doubt that some people might look at the habitat/deer stats and turn it around and say even tho we have lots of hunters/habitat we also have lots of deer/acre of habit and we need to kill even more. You never know what we’ll be fighting against! When it comes down to it, I’m comfortable with a few of our current battles. It could be worse! Will freely admit it could be better to. Just not sure what that will cost us yet.
 
Basic searches based on type of habitat put the numbers between 2.7 and 11. Those numbers seem logical. How is 37 being found. If 12 guys show up and drive my neighbors piece for 40 minutes in shotgun season does that count towards the total?? The addition, subtraction or non consideration of variables dictate data. Too easy to skew.
 
Last edited:
Windlooker said:
Basic searches based on type of habitat put the numbers between 2.7 and 11. Those numbers seem logical.
Click to expand...
2.7 hunters per square mile- I haven’t seen an area in the state in 25 years with that few. & I’ve been on farms in every 1 of our 99 or 100 counties in 25 yesrs. Not even close to a farm I have seen with that few people.
All those data sets are using the blurred data “across the whole state” - which- 2/3rd our state - there’s close to nothing there.
This is, as far as I know, the first data analyzed to this level. I got DNR’s & fact based data from multiple states to compile this. This is far more accurate than some fuzzy internet search. & it’s also not hard to look up the number of individual deer hunters in any state. & how much timber is in every state. We are 7-8% timber…. Closer to 7 right now.
I’m marking buddies Tsi in Taylor co right now. Covered whole place. Taylor is 2nd lowest population county in iowa. A 640 has about 6-7 land owners. Every single parcel & fence was loaded with stands & blinds. & I’ve been on Maybe 4 farms in Taylor. Less people & pressure, for sure. Some of least in state …. Still “plenty” of dudes on every block. & it’s not like 5 or 10…. It’s like “20+” & when u get into shotgun areas- folks forget how big some of these groups are that push farms - still to this day.


Again- we have 165,000 deer hunters in iowa. We have 2,800,000 timbered/forested acres. 4,375 square miles of timber. 165,000 divided by 4,375 square miles of timber/forest = 37.7 hunters per square mile of timber. It is less when factor in CRP or other things like marshes (which we have almost the least of) & our density is still very high.
 
It doesn’t pass the smell test. I’ve been hunting my 2 mile square block in zone 5 for 23 years. My block is 1500 acres and I have access to another 600 ac to the west. No way are numbers that high. I’m retired and spend nearly the entire deer season in camp. I don’t see it. Sorry to argue but my everyday observations don’t support those numbers. As I asked previously what’s the goal? Where’s this going ?
 
Last edited:
The numbers are in square miles of forest!! Most of us have never even seen a square mile of forest in the state! Very few even exist. The math is correct! If you actually think about 640 acres of pure timber it really isn’t that hard to think that 37+ people set foot on part of it throughout the season. Yes, the perception and consequences are different than other states where they are crammed in to the same gun season but we do need to realize how unique/fragile deer hunting is here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom