"The key to getting ahead of the deer population is to shoot lots of does," says Paup. "For years hunters wanted to shoot only bucks, and we encouraged that, because we needed the does to increase our population. But now that we have the deer herd where we want it, or still maybe too high in some places, we need hunters to shoot does.

"The nice thing is that our hunters are making the transition, changing the way they think," said Paup. "Twenty years ago, during shotgun season, guys would brag that their group killed 20 bucks, but most of them were little basket bucks. Now I hear the same groups proud that they killed 15 or 16 does, along with 4 or 5 really nice, big bucks, in the 150-plus range.

"Our hunters are taking the does, passing up small bucks, and taking only the biggest bucks. It's turning into a win-win situation."

Brant "Toad" Fox, a deer-hunting fanatic from Colfax, agrees. Along with being an avid hunter, he's part of RealHunting, an Iowa-based video production company that specializes in videos of Iowa deer hunts. Their RealHunting DVD (available at many local hunting supply retailers or at www.realhunting.us) is a compilation of videos shot by Iowa hunters of Iowa deer hunts.

"We want to showcase the kind of hunting we have in Iowa, along with the experiences of Iowa's hunters," said Fox. "Putting the DVD together made us realize how many really good deer there are in this state, and how dedicated our hunters are. For deer hunting fanatics like us, every day is Christmas, when we go to the mailbox and find another video that an Iowa hunter sent to us. It's awesome to see the bucks that are out there. From what I've seen and heard about bucks that nobody has gotten yet, there will be several world-record-class whitetails roaming Iowa this fall."

Fox noted that their most impressive videos came from northeast, southeast and south central Iowa. However, he conceded that he does much of his own hunting near his home in central Iowa.

"If everybody else thinks they have to go to southern Iowa to get a big buck, that's fine with me," he said with a chuckle. "And that's all I'm going to say."

MANAGING TODAY FOR THE FUTURE
Some might think that now that we're at the balancing point between too many and not enough deer, that the IDNR's wildlife managers might relax a bit and punch the autopilot button. Far from it: If anything, deer managers intend to enhance the management skills and tools they've developed over the 53 years since deer hunting was reinstituted in Iowa.

"We can't relax and coast," said Suchy. "Human influences and environmental factors constantly change the pressure on the deer population, and we have to react to those changes."

Special hunts in urban areas are an example of the IDNR's proactive attitude toward deer management. Complaints by residents of Des Moines, Cedar Rapids and other urban areas spurred city officials to work with the IDNR to develop special bow hunts within their city limits.

"Special hunts are one of the things I'm most pleased about," said Suchy. "They've proven to be really effective, and been well accepted by the hunting and non-hunting publics. Hunters like to be able to hunt close to home, and like to feel that they're contributing to a good thing. City officials have been pleased with the reductions in deer numbers, at basically no cost to them."

Suchy expects more cities to take advantage of special hunts as urban sprawl spreads more residents across rural wooded areas. Hunters interested in participating in, or creating, special hunts in their cities should contact city officials.

The IDNR also has a pro-active attitude toward the threat of chronic wasting disease in Iowa. CWD is fatal to deer and has an unproven but worrisome similarity to a neurological disease in humans. CWD was detected in deer in Wisconsin and Illinois several years ago, but has never been identified in deer in Iowa.

"We took 16,000 samples from Iowa deer and tested them for CWD, and they all tested negative," said wildlife biologist Hainfield. "It may never move into our state. But if it does, we have the advantage of having had several years to prepare, to set up a monitoring system, and to observe what did and didn't work to control it in other states that had outbreaks."

The IDNR also monitors the ever-increasing amount of land being bought or leased for hunting rights, especially in the southern half of the state.