Photo by Mark Werner

In a nutshell, this year's Iowa deer seasons will be as good as last year's -- and last year's were fantastic. Hawkeye hunters killed more than 194,000 deer during the 2004-05 seasons, 11,000 more than the previous record in 2003, a figure 10,000 higher than the record set in 2002.

See a trend? Iowa deer hunting keeps getting better and better. To make things even better, the quality of deer harvested is improving nearly as rapidly as is the quantity.

"Our hunters are buying into our philosophy of shooting lots of does, passing up small bucks, and shooting only the biggest bucks," said Willie Suchy, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist who monitors our deer herd. "The result is that everybody has lots of opportunities to kill a doe for meat, the smaller bucks have time to grow bigger racks, and the bucks we do harvest seem to be averaging maybe a little larger than in the past."

Ironically, the success of deer management in Iowa threatens its future. The high population of deer that provides exceptional hunting also causes expensive damage to crops and high insurance claims related to deer-auto collisions. The Iowa Legislature was under heavy pressure from agricultural and insurance groups last winter to force the IDNR to reduce deer numbers drastically. Extreme measures were debated, but in the end the IDNR's current policies were upheld, with some changes that ultimately benefit hunters.

"We're going to liberalize some of our non-resident licensing for the 2006 hunting seasons," said Suchy. "Landowner tags will be increased this year. We're going to increase the county quotas in some of the southern counties, and maybe extend the Special Late Bonus Season for another week and weekend to give guys more time to hunt. And there will be a $1 fee attached to all deer licenses to fund HUSH (Help Us Stop Hunger), a program that pays meat processors to process deer carcasses donated by hunters. The venison goes to needy families. A lot of our hunters said that they'd like to shoot more does, but don't have use for the meat. HUSH allows them to hunt knowing that the meat will be put to good use at no charge to them."

Looking back, Suchy is satisfied with last year's deer harvest, and the potential for this year's hunts. "If I had to critique last year's overall deer harvest, we maybe could have killed a few more does in some parts of the state," he said. "We still have too many deer in southeast and southern Iowa, and killing extra does is the way to bring the herd under control in those areas.

"There are other parts of the state, like northwest and north-central Iowa, where we're maybe getting ahead of the herd. We're going to have to watch those areas real close, maybe cut back on the county-by-county quotas, to keep from reducing the quality of hunts that are available in those areas."

BY THE NUMBERS
Statistics gathered from last year's deer seasons underlie Suchy's measured optimism. Counties in far northeast Iowa again led the state in deer harvested. Clayton County was the leading deer producer during our two shotgun seasons, with hunters killing 4,577 deer -- just seven more than in 2003, when hunters killed 4,570 deer. Allamakee County claimed second, producing 2,635 deer.