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One to Worry About

You forget that a decent percentage of the NR tags are NR landowners who do have an interest in killing does to manage their farms, but can only kill one doe per year with an anysex draw or NR landowner doe tag, which is counter productive. Most NR landowners are serious hunters/managers but cannot adequately address their deer numbers with the current system.
 
What do you guys pay right now for resident tags? Increase your resident tag cost?? IF you don't want the NR, ask for a tag increase for Residents then.

3 bucks tags, really do you need that many?? Why not 2?? One with archery and one with firearm?? Your choice to use it in what ever season you can like us in WI. NR are or should be only shooting 1 buck to your three!! That is if they even chose to shoot a buck. I would rather shoot one of your over populated does than shoot a 140" whitetail. But that is me. Heck I would gladly come over there and spank as many does as I could if the antlerless tag was cheeper too!! $208 for a doe?? Little steep!! Ya, we have to buy the small game liscense as well!!

6000 additional NR tags is outragious. Maybe 1000-2000?? with a preference point cost. But I feel you have lost a great deal of NR hunters already due to the $580 price tag now for us. I have not sent in for Iowa in over 7 years becuase of that fact. No whitetail is work $3500 much lest $580!! I will continue to stay in my home state and MN thank you! Even if I do love whitetail hunting in Iowa, just not for that money. that is the cost of an Elk tag which I would much rather do!!

Maybe in a year or two I will be back, but for now I would rather spend my money out west and in my home state as well as MN!!
 
You forget that a decent percentage of the NR tags are NR landowners who do have an interest in killing does to manage their farms, but can only kill one doe per year with an anysex draw or NR landowner doe tag, which is counter productive. Most NR landowners are serious hunters/managers but cannot adequately address their deer numbers with the current system.

Sounds like allowing some residents to hunt to whack some does would solve a lot of problems. Less resentment for nr's buying up the land and you get more does killed....could be a win win. :way:
 
I am in favor of protecting what you guys have up there. I know here in Kansas, we are fast on the path of Illinois. I don't want Iowa to become like us with unlimited NR tags.

That being said, I get tired of hearing how non-residents are hurting the trophy quality in Iowa. There were 60,000 bucks harvested this year. I don't know what the success rate was for NR, but I would bet it was well below 25%. So out of 60,000 bucks less than 1,500 of them were killed by NR. Thats less than 3%. Even fewer does were taken.

I am not arguing that there are not many negative side effects to allowing more non-residents into your state. But hurting the deer numbers and the trophy potential is not one of them. If you guys want good numbers of trophy whitetails, you need to go to a one buck system. One buck tag good for all seasons, like a landowners tag. I guarantee that would make a huge difference in mature buck sightings, but don't guess that there are very many residents that would be interested in doing this.

Very good post. Thanks for your perspectives as a NR. I could certainly live with a one buck limit.
 
I would rather see us "major on the majors" and "minor on the minors" in terms of where we place our energy in protecting the current landscape and/or changing things for the future. While resident landowners can get 3 buck tags, I seriously do not know even know one LO that has shot 3 bucks in a year, and only a few that have even shot 2 bucks, while most that I know shoot either 1 or 0. We can argue all we want about whether this is right or wrong, but I don't think there are very many bucks dying in this state on the third LO tag each year.

(Is there any way to get this stat from the state as we are all supposed to report harvest info specific to each tag so I would think that there could be a count of how many 3 buck shooters there are. I would be surprised if it was more 50 total statewide, I would guess we are talking about 10-20 statewide, but that is just an opinion.)

Meanwhile, I think all of us know that regardless of whether we support the late antlerless season or not, that a fair number of shed bucks will bite the dust in this season. I suspect it is MANY times more than the LO's 3rd tag bucks. So from my point of view, the 3rd tag for resident LO's is way down on the minor scale.
 
I would rather see us "major on the majors" and "minor on the minors" in terms of where we place our energy in protecting the current landscape and/or changing things for the future. While resident landowners can get 3 buck tags, I seriously do not know even know one LO that has shot 3 bucks in a year, and only a few that have even shot 2 bucks, while most that I know shoot either 1 or 0. We can argue all we want about whether this is right or wrong, but I don't think there are very many bucks dying in this state on the third LO tag each year.

(Is there any way to get this stat from the state as we are all supposed to report harvest info specific to each tag so I would think that there could be a count of how many 3 buck shooters there are. I would be surprised if it was more 50 total statewide, I would guess we are talking about 10-20 statewide, but that is just an opinion.)

Meanwhile, I think all of us know that regardless of whether we support the late antlerless season or not, that a fair number of shed bucks will bite the dust in this season. I suspect it is MANY times more than the LO's 3rd tag bucks. So from my point of view, the 3rd tag for resident LO's is way down on the minor scale.

I'm sorry Daver, but I completely disagree with you. I know plenty of landowners in my area who have taken 3 bucks off their property for number of years now. So I have to think this is more common than you think. I agree 100% with what Kansasdeerslayer said. If the DNR would change things to a 1 buck a season limit, or a continous buck tag good for all seasons, we would see the quality of our deer herd improve drastically!
 
Letemgrow
Sounds like you don't own land in Iowa. Why would you let residents shoot
deer on your property when they're the ones keeping you from hunting your
own property?
 
I'm sorry Daver, but I completely disagree with you. I know plenty of landowners in my area who have taken 3 bucks off their property for number of years now. So I have to think this is more common than you think. I agree 100% with what Kansasdeerslayer said. If the DNR would change things to a 1 buck a season limit, or a continous buck tag good for all seasons, we would see the quality of our deer herd improve drastically!

Could be, I guess we just know different people then. (Just curious, what area in general are you in?) I really don't care if we reduce the 3 bucks to 2 bucks, I just don't think that is going to change things very much at all, but maybe it will in some other areas that I am not familiar with.

FWIW, I do personally know people that have shot more bucks(shed bucks) in one weekend during this late antlerless season that what I as a landowner have shot total in the last 5 years or so. While that is admittedly a small sample size :D I still think that, at least in my general area, that shed bucks getting shot in the antlerless season is a far bigger toll than the landowners shooting an extra buck every year.

Are you also proposing to go from 2 bucks to 1 in a year? For everyone then I assume?
 
Could be, I guess we just know different people then. (Just curious, what area in general are you in?) I really don't care if we reduce the 3 bucks to 2 bucks, I just don't think that is going to change things very much at all, but maybe it will in some other areas that I am not familiar with.

FWIW, I do personally know people that have shot more bucks(shed bucks) in one weekend during this late antlerless season that what I as a landowner have shot total in the last 5 years or so. While that is admittedly a small sample size :D I still think that, at least in my general area, that shed bucks getting shot in the antlerless season is a far bigger toll than the landowners shooting an extra buck every year.

Are you also proposing to go from 2 bucks to 1 in a year? For everyone then I assume?

I'm located in Central Iowa. I would 100% in favor of 1 buck a year for everyone! No need to be greedy. If you want meat, shoot a doe.
 
you guys realize that if we went to 1 buck per hunter per year, then we would have to do away with party hunting(bummer)? I don't see that happening! i agree with Daver that most of the landowners I know don't usually shoot more than one buck, but it's usually not the landowners we have to worry about, it's the Joe Schmo weekend shotgunner that will fill 5 buck tags in a day just because his group has them. And yes, it happens alot in NE Iowa, can't speak for your areas!
 
I think some of you NR's misunderstand. Most residents only get 2 tags they can put on a buck. One archery and one gun. Now if your a land owner, meeting the necessary requirements, you can get one more tag that is only to be filled on your land.
 
I fully understand your system. All of you guys get 2 buck tags, and from what I've seen over the years on this website, most of you fill both bucks tags every year. According to what I have read, Kansas and Iowa have very similar sized deer herds. We are a one buck state here, and it would take us no time at all to completely ruin our bucks if they went to 2 per year. Our DNR decided to just let the NR shoot our bucks:confused:. Out of the 60,000 bucks killed this year in Iowa, 98% of them were killed by resident hunters. 12,000 button bucks, probably 100% of those were killed by residents since supposedly NR are only after big racks. If the buck numbers are suffering than it is the residents that are shooting them. If you want to see more bigguns in the future, than becoming a 1 buck state would have a huge impact. I would argue that it would make your state the greatest place in the nation(if it isn't already:)) to hunt trophy whitetails and you probably could get away with charging $800-$1000 to NR and keep the NR tag numbers to a minimum.


By the way, I know 3 LO's that took 3 bucks this year.

If you guys believe your state's deer herd can continue to support shooting multiple bucks per hunter per year, than by all means, keep doing what you are doing.
 
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Maybe we need a poll. :way:

I only know one hunter on this site that shot three.

Heck I never had a chance at even two. :confused:
 
hahaha, the number of LOs harvesting 3 bucks is so inconsequential, the mere thought makes me laugh. That has even less of an impact than shed bucks getting shot.

there are far more important issues. Just sayin
 
Rather than argue about who has shot 2 bucks and 3 bucks, etc. Seriously, is there a way to get the actual stats from the data that should be available since we now log our deer into a state database?

It sounds like there may be some differences in how LO"s in one area of the state harvest bucks v. other areas. Also, correct me if I am wrong, but I think it is possible for a non-landowner to take three antlered bucks in a year if they also participate in special "town" hunts too.

I still say there has to be WAY more "multiple" bucks being killed by late antlerless hunters getting shed bucks.
 
Are we argueing about to many bucks getting shot by residents or the fact that 6000 more NR tags would most likely lock up 100% of the land in the decent deer hunting counties. Not to mention drive land prices thru the roof. Create huge sanctuary's. Oh but eventually the top-end would get shot out leaving Iowa to look like Wisconsin with way to many deer. So we basically eradicate them and everyone moves on to the next best state. Sounds great I'm in...:way:

Anyone in favor of more NR tags obviously has an agenda other than protecting the quality of hunting in Iowa.
 
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Are we argueing about to many bucks getting shot by residents or the fact that 6000 more NR tags would most likely lock up 100% of the land in the decent deer hunting counties. Not to mention drive land prices thru the roof. Create huge sanctuary's. Oh but eventually the top-end would get shot out leaving Iowa to look like Wisconsin with way to many deer. So we basically eradicate them and everyone moves on to the next best state. Sounds great I'm in...:way:

Anyone in favor of more NR tags obviously has an agenda other than protecting the quality of hunting in Iowa.



Couldn't have said it any better!:way:
 
Having residents go to a 1 buck limit and adding more NR tags won't change a thing. If a landowner wants to shoot 3 bucks per year obviously his buck sightings will suffer in years to come. Especially if they're all being killed on the same farm. Regardless these deer are on his farm not anyone else's.

If everybody was poor adding more NR tags probably wouldn't hurt so much but that's not the case. There are some filthy rich people out there that like to hunt and that's where the problem comes from. Buying/Leasing up all the land.
 
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Having residents go to a 1 buck limit and adding more NR tags won't change a thing. If a landowner wants to shoot 3 bucks per year obviously his buck sightings will suffer in years to come. Especially if they're all being killed on the same farm. Regardless these deer are on his farm not anyone else's.

If everybody was poor adding more NR tags probably wouldn't hurt so much but that's not the case. There are some filthy rich people out there that like to hunt and that's where the problem comes from. Buying/Leasing up all the land.


JJ ...them filthy rich people out there aren't all NR's, no matter how much you'd like to believe that. And if Uncle Joe decides to sell his farm and Joe Blow will give him more $$ than the next guy, he won't care who he is getting it from. Supply and demand...last I saw 99.5% of Iowa farmland was privately owned.And I'll bet those that invest the $$ for hunting habitat whether res or non-res put plenty into making that habitat darn nice. They aren't tearing it up from fencerow to fencerow...I pretty much think that improves Iowa habitat and a lot of hunters reap the benefit from it.
 
I'm a landowner and had three tags last year never filled a one of them but I know of at least five bucks that were more then likely two and a half years old that were taken on public ground within a mile radius of my place by NRs. Now I'm not complaining these bucks were all taken legally and the hunters did it right had a good time and had a great trip hats off to them it's what it is all about I actually keep in contact with one of them and have made several good friends that are NRs through the years that come hunt public ground next to me. But whats worse on our trophy hunting me being able to get an extra tag to go enjoy what I work so hard to pay for and enjoy or adding more NR tags? In eleven years I can think of one year were I filled all three tags.
 
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