Chris Parks and Cass/Adair County Conservation Officer Grant Gelly talk about all things outdoors. This week they discuss Pheasant hunting over the holidays, a recent waterfowl enforcement effort, donating deer hides to benefit veterans, and more.
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(Des Moines, Iowa) – Iowa’s most popular deer hunting seasons are just around the corner, when roughly 100,000 blaze orange clad hunters take to the timber and wildlife experts are forecasting another good year. “Our deer population is stable to slightly increasing statewide, so hunters should expect to see numbers similar to last year,” said Tyler Harms, with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
The two shotgun seasons see the highest numbers of hunters participating, which also leads to significant deer harvest, all condensed into less than three weeks in December. “About half of our annual deer harvest statewide each year occurs during these two seasons,” Harms said. Shotgun one is Dec. 3-7; shotgun two is Dec. 10-18.
While seasonal weather is finally arriving, the mild, dry fall has benefited hunters in the earlier deer seasons. “Hunters have reported harvesting more than 23,000 deer so far, which is about 8 percent higher than last year, so we’re on track to harvest more than 100,000 deer statewide again this year,” Harms said.
Last year, hunters reported harvesting nearly 103,000 deer, down from 109,600 in 2020. The Iowa DNR has a goal to manage the herd to provide an annual harvest of 100,000-120,000 deer. A key piece to the population management plan is harvesting antlerless deer. “We encourage folks in counties where antlerless licenses are available to use them to help us to effectively manage the deer herd,” Harms said. The Iowa DNR has a listing of counties with antlerless licenses in real-time. To check the number of licenses in each county, visit www.iowadnr.gov, then click on the “available tags, quota information” tab on the hunting page and select “Resident Antlerless Deer by County” in the drop-down box. 
New this year is the Excess Tag January Antlerless Season. Any county with unsold county specific antlerless licenses on Jan. 11, is eligible for this season. “This is an opportunity to harvest late season deer, but this new season has a limited method of take – only centerfire rifles from .223 to .500 caliber may be used,” said Harms. Counties that typically have unsold licenses at the end of the season in the past were those with higher quotas, in the southern and northeastern parts of the state.
“We also have the Population Management January Antlerless-only Season to manage the herd in localized areas. This season will be available in Allamakee, Appanoose, Decatur, Monroe, Wayne and Winneshiek if the county has more than 100 antlerless tags available on Dec. 19,” Harms said. “Although this season is only available in those six counties, it allows all legal methods of take, in addition to the .223 to .500 centerfire rifles.”
The Population Management January Antlerless-only Season is in select counties where chronic wasting disease has been confirmed. The season, if open, will be Jan. 11-22, 2023.
Deer donation program
The Iowa Deer Exchange is in its third year of connecting participants willing to provide deer meat with those willing to accept it. Heading in to the shotgun deer hunting seasons, the Iowa DNR is encouraging Iowans to sign up for the program. Participants who signed up previously are encouraged to review their profile to make sure they are still considered active and the offer good until date hasn’t passed. “We’re encouraging hunters who are making their plans now to consider picking up another doe tag and registering with the deer exchange to donate venison,” said Harms.
To sign up for the Iowa Deer Exchange, go to www.iowadnr.gov/deer then scroll down to Iowa’s Deer Exchange Program link and fill out the required fields. The database creates a map and table with information deer donors and deer recipients can use to get connected. There is no cost to participate. It is illegal to sell wild fish and game in Iowa.
The deer exchange, along with the Help us Stop Hunger (HUSH) program, allows hunters an opportunity to provide high quality lean protein to their neighbors, while continuing to do what they enjoy – hunting deer. Hunter who prefer to use the HUSH program are encouraged to contact a participating locker before they harvest a deer to see if the locker has any additional drop off instructions. The list of participating lockers is available at www.iowadnr.gov/deer the scroll down to the Help Us Stop Hunger link. The HUSH program is a partnership between the Iowa DNR, the Food Bank of Iowa and participating meat lockers.
Online hunting atlas
Hunters have an online tool that may improve their in-field experience, even before opening day. The Iowa hunting atlas is an interactive map that shows all available public hunting land that is managed by the state, county or federal governments. The atlas is online at www.iowadnr.gov/hunting. A mobile version is also available. A click on an area will show basic information like size, habitat type and likely species available.
Report your harvest
Hunters who harvest a deer are required to report their harvest by midnight on the day after it is tagged or before taking it to a locker or taxidermist. The hunter whose name is on the transportation tag is responsible for making the report. If no deer is harvested, no report is necessary.
Options to report your harvest include texting the registration number on your deer tag to 1-800-771-4692 and follow the prompts, online, by phone, through a license vendor during normal business hours, or using the Go Outdoors Iowa app. Reporting using the app is straight forward, fast and easy. Hunters have their confirmation right on their phone and also receive it as an email.
Deer harvest numbers are an important component of Iowa’s deer management plan.
Changes to deer seasons
Jim Field talks about Small Business Saturday.
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Jim Field talks about the cost of Thanksgiving dinner for 2022.
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(Radio Iowa) – Iowa State University ag economist Chad Hart says the recent sale of 73 acres of northwest Iowa farmland — for 30-thousand dollars an acre — indicates Iowa farmers are seeing fairly good profit margins. “At the same time, too, though — I would say that we’re also hearing of less land being put on the market because folks are worried that those prices may be weakening,” Hart says.
Higher interest rates are a factor, plus Hart says agland that’s not rated as excellent ground for raising corn isn’t selling for especially high prices. “So there’s a separation that I think’s occurring right now where high quality land is still attracting those dollars,” Hart says, “where maybe the middle and low quality land may be starting to see some erosion in those values as we look forward.”
On November 11th, a tract of farmland near Sheldon appears to have set an Iowa sales record of 30-thousand dollars an acre. It was purchased by a local farmer according to the auctioneer who handled the sale. The value of farmland that’s enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program appears to be holding steady, according to Hart. “There’s a market for it and I think when we look the payments that are being offered for those conservation programs, that’s helping hold that value where it’s at,” Hart says, “but we’re not seeing a run on that market like we are seeing on high-quality cropland.”
There’s a calculation called the “corn suitability rating” for agland and Hart says there’s a limited number of tracts of that highly rated ground for raising corn coming up for sale. “The reason we see sort of northwest Iowa really, if you will, light up when it comes to land values is that you’ve got not only crop producers who are competing for that land, but also the livestock industry,” Hart says. “With strong dairy up there, the cattle industry and even a few hog producers up there, it creates a very strong competition for that land up in northwest Iowa that helps push those land values higher than what we see in the rest of the state.”
Hart is currently the crop market specialist in Iowa State University’s Department of Economics. Hart began his career at Iowa State in 1996 in I-S-U’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute.
(Radio Iowa) – Net sales for Deere and Company were up 40 percent in its last quarter. The company’s net income for its fiscal year was over seven-point-one BILLION dollars. C-E-O John May says Deere’s just-concluded fiscal year was unprecedented in several ways. “We started the year in a work stoppage at some of our largest U.S. factories, but we resolved that with a groundbreaking, industry-leading new contract,” May says. “Then supply and logistics hurdles created disruption. At times, deliveries were delayed as demand simply outstripped what the industry could supply.” May says from May through the end of October, Deere had a substantial increase in retail sales AND in production from its factories.
“As I look ahead to Fiscal Year 2023 and beyond, I truly believe our best years are ahead of us,” May says. May says the fundamentals in the farm economy are positive and that’s driving demand for tractors and other implements. North American combine orders were recently filled in two months. “In the near term, order books across our businesses are full into the third quarter,” May says, “and it’s important to note that not only do the order books continue to fill when we open them, but the velocity of orders has remained strong.”
May spoke this (Wednesday) morning during an online presentation to investors. Deere’s stock price has been climbing this year and it went higher this (Wednesday) morning after Deere’s financial report was released.
Jim Field speaks with Deb Schuler about the 2022 Festival of Trees coming up December 1st through the 4th at the Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Parish Center in Atlantic.
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DES MOINES – Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, Tuesday, signed an extension of the proclamation relating to the weight limits and transportation of grain, fertilizer, and manure. The proclamation is effective immediately and continues through December 22, 2022. The proclamation allows vehicles transporting corn, soybeans, hay, straw, silage, stover, fertilizer (dry, liquid, and gas), and manure (dry and liquid) to be overweight (not exceeding 90,000 pounds gross weight) without a permit for the duration of this proclamation.
The proclamation applies to loads transported on all highways within Iowa (excluding the interstate system) and those which do not exceed a maximum of 90,000 pounds gross weight, do not exceed the maximum axle weight limit determined under the non-primary highway maximum gross weight table [in Iowa Code 321.463-1](6) (b)], by more than 12.5 percent, do not exceed the legal maximum axle weight limit of 20,000 pounds, and comply with posted limits on roads and bridges.
(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa bobcat trapping season is underway and D-N-R wildlife biologist, Vince Evelsizer, says trappers should be able to fill their quotas. “Bobcat populations are doing very well across the southern part of Iowa, the extreme western part of Iowa, and they’re continuing to expand northward up through eastern Iowa,” he says. Evelsizer says it’s one of the positive conservation stories. “The bobcats story is a happy one. Their numbers are stable to increasing in almost all counties of Iowa that have ideal habitat, which is typically early successional forest and in fields, natural grass fields, that sort of thing where there’s a good prey abundance,” Evelsizer says.
The limits on bobcat trapping continue based on the populations for each county. “The north-central part of Iowa is still closed to bobcat harvest. And then there’s several counties across central Iowa that are open to one bobcat bag limit for that county,” he says. “And then the three tiers of southern Iowa counties is open to a three bobcat bag limit.” Evelsizer says the trapping helps keep the populations from getting out of control.”They don’t have many natural predators in the Midwest which you know out in the western U-S — or the far north — they would have to watch out for bigger cats such as mountain lions or even gray wolves with their kittens you know that sort of thing,” Evelsizer says.
You can find out more about bobcat trapping on the Iowa D-N-R’s website.
Jim Field speaks with Shaun Sayres with the Danish Windmill in Elk Horn about Julefest in the Danish Villages this weekend.
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