Photo by BillKinney.com

By Dan Anderson

The numbers are amazing. Prior to last year's deer seasons, Iowa Department of Natural Resources biologists looked at deer population surveys, analyzed license sales and then loosened hunting regulations in hopes of a record-setting harvest of 170,000 deer. Though that figure exceeded the preceding year's total by 30,000 deer, biologists felt that the higher harvest was necessary to stay ahead of our mushrooming deer herd.

Our hunters actually surpassed the biologists' expectations and tagged more than 182,000 deer last winter, the most deer ever killed during Iowa hunting seasons. But it wasn't enough. Population surveys last spring indicate that deer numbers are still growing. According to deer management biologist Willie Suchy, that's why the 2004 Iowa deer hunting seasons look so promising.

"We have the potential to kill 200,000 deer this year," he said. "The deer are there. It's just a matter of getting hunters to take advantage of all the license opportunities we offer. Surveys indicate that only 60 percent of our hunters get more than one tag. There's lots of room for more hunters to take more deer."

Iowa attracted attention nationwide last year when 15-year-old Tony Lovstuen of Albia used a muzzleloader during the Youth Deer Season to bag an extraordinary non-typical that, scoring 319 4/8, ranks in Boone and Crockett's all-time top five.

Suchy's reaction to Lovstuen's buck? "We knew (the Lovstuen buck) was around," he said. "We'd heard rumors about it for several years. I'm still hearing rumors about big bucks from guys who know big deer when they see them. There are still bucks in Iowa as big or bigger than the Lovstuen buck."

In 2003, Clayton County, in northeast Iowa was again our top deer producer. During the shotgun hunting seasons, hunters tagged a phenomenal 4,570 deer in Clayton County. That's more than 2,000 deer ahead of second place Jackson County, which tallied 2,556. Third place went to Allamakee County with 2,531.

Hunters in Winneshiek County earned fourth place by killing 2,306 deer; Jones County took fifth spot by tagging 2,182 deer. Dubuque County claimed sixth place with 2,093.

"Northeast and eastern Iowa have the habitat that supports a large deer herd and there's always going to be good hunting in those areas," said Suchy. "A couple of years ago, complaints by landowners and our population surveys indicated that the deer population was maybe getting too large, so last year we added those areas to our bonus late antlerless hunting season."

Van Buren County in far southeast Iowa took seventh place in 2003 with 2,062 deer. The rest of the top 10 deer-producing counties were scattered across the eastern half of the state. Fayette County, in northeast Iowa, killed 1,906 deer for the eighth spot. Johnson County, in east-central Iowa, tallied 1,854 for ninth place, while Linn County, also in east central Iowa, took 10th with 1,672 deer during the dual shotgun seasons.

Longtime readers of Iowa Game & Fish will remember when the top 10 counties in our annual deer harvest statistics were clustered in far northeast and far southeast Iowa. The addition of east-central counties like Linn and Johnson to the harvest top 10 reflects subtle changes in deer distribution and significant changes in hunting regulations.

"Some of our larger urban areas are in east central Iowa, so we have more hunters in those areas, and those hunters are finding plenty of deer," said Suchy. "Adding those counties to our bonus antlerless season allowed the hunters an extra opportunity to either take an extra deer or get a doe after they didn't get a buck during the regular shotgun seasons."

Guthrie County, in west-central Iowa, took 11th place in the 2003 shotgun season statistics with 1,630 deer. Davis and Lee counties, both in southeast Iowa, garnered 12th and 13th positions, with 1,606 and 1,560 deer, respectively. Tama County, in east-central Iowa, took the 14th spot with 1,498 deer.

Southeastern counties claimed the 15th and 16th positions - Washington and Jefferson counties produced 1,447 and 1,414 deer during the shotgun seasons. Jasper County, in central Iowa, took 17th place with 1,411 deer. The counties that filled out the rest of our top 25 deer producing counties were spread across the state - Clinton County (eastern Iowa) took 18th with 1,392 deer, Marion County (south central) earned 19th with 1,377 shotgunned deer, and Butler County (northeast Iowa) claimed 20th spot with 1,366 deer.

Madison and Warren counties, both in central Iowa, earned 21st and 22nd by killing 1,364 and 1,327 deer. Appanoose County, in far southern Iowa, claimed 23rd place with 1,316 deer in 2003. Delaware (northeast) and Iowa (east central) counties tied for 25th with 1,285 deer.

"The good news is that our hunters appear to be using our antlerless tags," said Suchy. "We sold most of our antlerless tags last year, and hunters were able to find deer and fill their tags after they bought them."

"I'm really impressed with the effort and willingness of our hunters to voluntarily do what other states are trying to regulate," he said. "(Other states) are having a hard time getting their hunters to shoot does and pass up young bucks. Our hunters are doing it on their own without us having to regulate them into doing it. They're learning that if they shoot does and pass up young bucks in a localized area, they can effectively create a population of older, larger bucks down the road, and still help us keep the overall deer population under control."

The willingness of Iowa's hunters to take does and pass up young bucks has admittedly complicated Suchy's job. Shooting does and leaving young bucks can skew the age-sex ratio of local herds, and makes it more challenging for him to project statewide deer population trends.

"We've got some areas that had too many deer prior to last year's hunts, and I'm not sure how the hunts affected those areas," he explained. "This year's surveys show the same total population in the areas, even though we killed a lot of deer.

"There are two possibilities. It could be that they killed mostly does, passed on the young bucks, and in the end killed enough does to cancel out the population increase from last year's fawns. But if hunters shot all the yearling bucks, and left the does, those does will have produced one or probably two fawns this year, and we're going to be even further behind the deer population in those areas.

"The problem is that we have no way to know which way it went until a couple of years down the road. At that point, we're either going to get reports of a lot of really nice bucks because hunters have allowed them to get some age, or we're going to have deer coming out of our ears because the hunters allowed those does and their doe fawns to reproduce."

The bottom line, according to Suchy, is that Iowa's hunting regulations allow hunters to enjoy both meat and trophy hunting. "Our hunters can use the shotgun or bow or muzzleloader seasons to try and get a trophy buck, and then come back during the bonus antlerless season to get a doe for meat," he said. "It's a win-win deal. They get meat and maybe a trophy, and we get their help in managing the population."

"Northeast Iowa is always going to be our best place to kill a deer," said Suchy. "It just has the habitat, to the point where we're still maybe a little behind the herd up there. We're probably going to liberalize the antlerless quotas up there to see if we can't kill a few more does and catch up with them.

"The same goes for east-central and southeast Iowa. We'll probably tweak the quotas a little on a county-by-county basis to add or remove pressure to adjust the local populations. There are plenty of deer in those areas - lots of nice bucks. And I think things are overall looking really good across the eastern third of Iowa."

South-central and a strip of counties from west-central into southwest Iowa will be watched closely by Suchy and his staff in coming years. "There's a strip of counties starting west of Des Moines and running down into southwest Iowa that are hotspots for us," he said. "We need more hunters in a strip running from Guthrie County, down through Adair and Madison counties, on into Union, Clarke, Ringgold and Taylor counties. Those are some of the state's most rural areas - not a lot of hunters in those areas, but there are a lot of deer. If a hunter wants to travel to another part of the state to hunt, those are the counties I'd send him to.

"Northwest and north-central - I'm pretty satisfied with the deer numbers in those areas. Some hunters up in those areas are concerned that we've overhunted the deer in the northwest third of the state, and we may tighten up county quotas to reflect that. Some of those guys have hunted those areas for a lot of years. We respect their opinions.

"There are a few places in the northwest third of the state that are probably overhunted, but there are a few places where we still get complaints from landowners, which tells me we have a few hotspots that are getting overlooked."

Suchy suggested that hunters contact wildlife management biologists Chris LaRue at the IDNR's Big Sioux Unit, (712) 336-1485, Ron Howing at the Ingham Unit, (712) 362-2091, or Tom Neal at the Ruthven Unit, (712) 262-4177, for information about localized areas that need more hunting pressure in northwest Iowa.

Far western and central Iowa are about on target for deer population and hunting pressure, according to Suchy. "We don't get a lot of landowner complaints, or hunter complaints, from far western Iowa, so things are about where we want them out there as far as deer numbers," he said. "Central Iowa is tough to manage, because north of Des Moines it's agricultural and flat and the deer are easy to hunt, but south of Des Moines in Marion and Warren counties, we've got some of the best deer hunting in the state. Polk County is a challenge, because there are so many deer in the urban Des Moines area.

"Some of the special urban hunts have been very successful, some haven't. We have a waiting list of bowhunters who want to hunt in Waterworks Park. Some of the other, harder-to-access county areas, like Yellow Banks, and (U.S. Army) Corps of Engineers areas up around Saylorville, don't get as much attention, and actually need more hunters, even though they have just as many deer as Waterworks Park."

"Selective hunting of yearling bucks is the best way to increase rack size in Iowa," he observed. "I hear about guys planting special food plots to increase rack size, but it's not necessary. Our soils in Iowa are so fertile that nutrition is never a limiting factor to our rack sizes.

"Food plots in Iowa won't help rack size, but they will attract and hold deer in a specific area. Once you get deer in an area where you can control hunting, if you pass up the young bucks and kill does to keep from overpopulating, you're eventually going to have some older bucks that will make you stand up and pay attention."

Iowa doesn't use registration stations to track the number and size of trophy racks harvested each year, so Suchy can only estimate our supply of trophy-caliber bucks. But his educated opinion augurs well for Hawkeye deer hunters.

"As I talk to hunters and hear about how many of them are shooting does and passing on young bucks, I'm getting a really, really good feeling," he concluded. "In two, maybe three years, when those yearling bucks have had a chance to grow, I think there are going to be some pretty happy deer hunters in Iowa."