Deer licenses go on sale Saturday and DNR state deer biologist Jace Elliott says this year they are moving away from the traditional midnight start time.
“For obvious reasons, we’re opting to move that to 9 a.m. just to make things a little bit easier for our vendors, our license agents, and hunters as well, who might not want to stay up till midnight to secure that license,” Elliott says.
The Zone B counties. (DNR map)
The other big change is a move to two license zones for deer hunting. There’s one zone that includes eight counties in northwest Iowa that will be called Zone B and have a default tag for antlered bucks only.
The other 91 counties will be in Zone A, and will stay with the any sex general deer license. “Anybody in the northwest part of the state should familiarize themselves with the zone A, zone B line and determine which zone they plan on hunting because these zones, excuse me, these licenses are now going to be zone specific,” he says.
Audubon, Carroll and Greene counties have been added to the antlered buck only first regular gun season. Population Management January Antlerless Season will be available in Allamakee and Winneshiek counties only, if the number of unsold antlerless licenses on the third Monday in December exceeds 100. Go to the DNR website for complete deer hunting information.
Another rule change involves deer stands. He says hunters who leave deer stands on public land must have a metal tag on the deer stand that is visible from the ground and has their DNR ID number on it.
Elliott says the changes are a result of hunter input. “These fairly significant changes are largely the results of our hunters working with us as a department to come up with a strategy that works for hunters and is likely to lead to a desired population effect,” he says.
The DNR held several meetings across the state to get input before making the rule changes.