Any iOWA DNR OFFICERS HERE? Question?

[iowathumper]

I have a question on Early Muzzleloader season.

The way I understand the regulations. If you have a Bow Tag and a Early Muzzle loader tag you can take both weapons with you hunting.

My question is during the Early Muzzleloader season Can you shoot a deer with your bow and Tag it with your muzzleloader tag. Or do you have to use a Muzzleloader to use that tag.

 

[meyeri]

Not a CO, but the answer is no. Look at page 24 of the hunting regulations handbook, it shows you the legal weapons during the different seasons. Not sure why you can for late muzzy, but not early.

 

[bigbuckhunter88]

For early muzzleloader the only legal method of taking an animal is with a muzzleloading rifle or muzzleloading pistol.

 

[livtahunt]

You cannot take both muzzle loader and bow in the field with you during early season

 

[southcentral]

You cannot take both muzzle loader and bow in the field with you during early season

you are saying, if I have both an archery tag and an early muzzy tag, I can't take both weapons in the blind at once. I have a hard time believing that.

 

[Tim Hull]

Why would you not use your muzzleloader during that 9 days since it is only good those 9 days, that way if you took a deer during that season you could still hunt the rest of the archery season?

 

[NWBuck]

Why would you not use your muzzleloader during that 9 days since it is only good those 9 days, that way if you took a deer during that season you could still hunt the rest of the archery season?

Early muzzleloader is antlered only, and if a person had a doe tag for bow season that they wanted to possibly fill, it'd make sense to take them both. I know I have. Guess I can't say I've looked it up in the regs, but I always thought it was legal to take both, but you had to meet the blaze orange requirement of the early ML season.

NWBuck

 

[Bowtech84]

An EM tag is any sex like any other statewide tag but you must buy the statewide before buying additional doe tags and you cannot use a bow with any of these tags. The DNR is probably trying to avoid bowhunters buying up these tags and filling the quota as a second bow tag with no intention of using a muzzleloader. I believe you can take your bow and ML with you if you have tags for both.

I agree with this

 

[bigbuckhunter88]

An EM tag is any sex like any other statewide tag but you must buy the statewide before buying additional doe tags and you cannot use a bow with any of these tags. The DNR is probably trying to avoid bowhunters buying up these tags and filling the quota as a second bow tag with no intention of using a muzzleloader. I believe you can take your bow and ML with you if you have tags for both.

I agree with this also, except in NW Iowa it is a buck only tag

 

[NWBuck]

Yep, check the regs...it's been antlered only in EM and shotgun season 1 up here for a couple of years now. But in our specific area we also have depredation doe tags available from a couple of landowners who have significant crop damage. So it's common for either my son or I to have both an EM tag and an archery dep tag...thus leading to us wanting to take both weapons along on a given hunt. But I do understand that the EM tag can't be filled with a bow.

NWBuck