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Hunting with a bow offers an ‘experience’ with nature

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Several thousand hunters will take to the woods with a bow looking to bring home a deer in the next several weeks. DNR wildlife biologist Jim Coffey says the bow season has become more and more popular because of what it offers to hunters.

“Probably the most unique thing about archery season is the hunting experience itself and the fact that a lot of people will hunt individually. It’s not quite as social as the shotgun season with the party system. And this gives people a chance to get that one-on-one relationship with nature,” Coffey says. The season opened Sunday (Oct 1) and some 62,000 hunters are expected to take part. He says on a slow deer day, there’s still plenty to see.

“If there’s not deer then you are observing the squirrels and you’re observing the woodpeckers and all of the other parts of nature. It’s just a very solace type of feeling that connects you back to nature,” according to Coffey. “A lot of bowhunters are hunting from tree stands, and that puts you right up there in intimately in the habitat itself.” The deer movement is a little different this time of year too, as they are still in their summer pattern, moving from their bedding areas to food sources.

“We’re still fairly green,but we’re turning into an early fall mixture. The leaves will be falling, we’re looking at corn be coming out which changes the habitat evaluation — so it just makes for a different experience,” Coffey says. “A lot of times the deer hunter’s going to be looking at the bedding areas and feeding areas and not so much worried about the ruts or the physical activity of the deer that are based the deer social behaviors, they are looking at the actual day-to-day movement of deer.” Using a bow takes hunters back to the very early days of hunting. Though Coffey says the modern bows used today are the top of the line in technology.

“And that’s good, but ultimately you still have to have good woodsmanship skills — you still have got to understand your weapon — just because it’s an expensive or a better weapon doesn’t mean that you know how to operate it,” Coffey says. “You’ve got to be practicing, you’ve got to understand your abilities and distance and judging. You need to practice from shooting from that elevated position because your angles change, which means it’s not the same as shooting at a target in the back yard.”

Coffey says practicing is important to avoid accidents with your bow and he says you need to check all of your equipment to be sure you are safe. “The number one hunting-related accident in Iowa is falling from a bow stand,” Coffey says. “So checking out those bolts and screws and straps on those stands…those are the most important critical things you can do.” He says the great experience of the hunt can be ruined because a piece of equipment wasn’t checked and failed.

“Going into the woods and coming out of the woods is the greatest thing you can do — not harvesting a deer,” he says. Coffey says you should at least get a chance to see a deer.

He says deer numbers are about what they were last year and he expects the total harvest from ALL the seasons should be around 100,000. Bow hunters took nearly 13,000 of the total deer last year. The archery season will close on December 1st for the shotgun seasons, then reopens on December 18th until closing on January 10th.

Photo courtesy of the DNR.

DNR increasing surveillance in western Iowa after Nebraska CWD discovery

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The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will take a more concentrated look at the deer who roam along the state’s western border with Nebraska this fall to screen for Chronic Wasting Disease.

The move comes after 5 deer harvested in southeast Nebraska in 2016 tested positive for the disease. The CWD coordinator for the DNR, Terry Haindfield, says the effort will be similar to what they’ve done when CWD has been detected in other border states.

“We’ve been obviously watching the eastern border along Wisconsin and Illinois and also Minnesota and Missouri. But now we are watching our some of our border to the west along the Missouri River due to some positives in southeast Nebraska,” Haindfield.

The effort starts with meetings Monday and Tuesday. He says they are going to talk to the public about the increase surveillance from Woodbury down to Fremont counties. Haindfield says they normally take 15 samples in every county. But he says they increase the number of samples in those border counties of states where CWD has been found and that’s what’s going to happen now on the western side of the state.

“We’re doing anywhere from 100 to 150 samples from hunter-collected deer in those areas — that’s our goal anyway for this fall,” Haindfield explains. The western counties have the “Big Muddy” between them and the infected deer in Nebraska, but Haindfield says it’s not an impenetrable border.

“Those border rivers are not immune to crossing from deer — they can obviously swim those — but they still are physical barriers. So that does give us somewhat of a nice hope that they might not have crossed that yet.” While it hasn’t been conclusively proven, it’s believed the infected deer in eastern Iowa may’ve come across the river there based on their location.

“We’ve had 18 positives total, 17 being in Allamakee and one new one in Clayton County northwest of Elkader this last fall,” Haindfield says. Haindfield says he’s been impressed with the way the people in northeast Iowa have stepped up to help collect samples and track the deer there.

He says the support has been “tremendous” after their meetings there and he says that’s why it is important for people in western Iowa to attend the meetings and find out what is going on. “Hunters and landowners have stepped up greatly in helping us get those samples, and also to help stop the spread of chronic wasting disease,” according to Haindfield.

The first meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Monday (Sept. 25), in the Lewis and Clark State Park Visitor Center, three miles west of Onawa. The second is set for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday (Sept. 26) at the public library in Missouri Valley.

Ammonia from Wells Blue Bunny plant likely caused fish kill

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State officials say ammonia used as a refrigerant in a Wells Blue Bunny plant is the likely cause of a fish kill in a small stream near Le Mars.

Julie Sievers of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says the dead fish were first reported early Thursday morning by a person who’d been on a bike path near the stream.

“We sent one of our environmental specialists to investigate and he determined that there were elevated levels of ammonia in that stream,” Sievers says. “Working with city officials, he traced it back to the cooling water discharge from Wells Blue Bunny north plant.”

Ammonia is not typically part of the water that’s discharged from the plant.

“The cooling used to circulate and used as part of their refrigeration process,” Sievers says, “and that water is discharged to the city’s storm water system and out this ‘outfall’ as part of the process.”

The stream drains into the Floyd River, but investigators say there are “no obvious issues” in the river. Elevated ammonia levels are toxic for fish and several hundred dead minnows and chubs were found in the unnamed creek. Sievers says officials from Wells Blue Bunny are investigating to find out where the ammonia may have come from.

“Ammonia is used as the refrigerant and that’s very typical in industrial cooling processes,” Sievers says. “It is typically a closed system so it is not released into the water, so somewhere they’ve got a breach, a leak, a break, some type of situation with their cooling system that it’s releasing some of the ammonia into the cooling water and, thus, into the discharge.”

Sievers says Wells Dairy has been asked to verify the source of the leak and confirm the release of ammonia has been stopped. State officials say children and pets should stay away from the creek for at least 24 hours. The creek, which is west of Le Mars, is near a ball park that’s south of Highway 3.

Dove season opens Friday in Iowa

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Mourning doves. (DNR photo)

The state’s seventh dove hunting season opens Friday and an Iowa Department of Natural Resources expert says many hunters have probably already been out scouting.

DNR  Wildlife research biologist Todd Bogenschutz says the preliminary work is key in dove hunting. “Definitely when you are thinking about dove hunting — doing some pre-season scouting before the season opens is super important,” Bogenschutz says. “Doves begin migrating out of Iowa usually around mid-August and start heading south and you definitely want to find out which fields they are using and how they are coming in and out of the fields.”

The state plants food plots to draw in the doves, and Bogenschutz says they can often be good areas to hunt. “Sometimes we’re pretty successful and kind of create ideal conditions. Other times mother nature makes it a bit challenging, so even our managed dove plots you want to check out,” according to Bogenschutz. “If you are going to be hunting on private land — whether that is pasture, cut silage fields, small grains fields — definitely pays to check those out too. How many doves are using them.”

The Iowa DNR doesn’t keep official counts of doves, but Bogenschutz says they’ve had some reports as other species are counted.

“We’re hearing from staff they are seeing pretty good numbers when we do the roadside counts, even though they don’t count them there. It looks like our season should be pretty similar to last year and I’m expecting the hunters should do fairly well,” Bogenschutz says. Hunters took 131-thousand doves last season.

“I think that’s one of our highest harvest totals and so we are expecting another good season this year,” Bogenschutz says, “our hunter numbers have stayed relatively stable. We’re right there I think around the 10 to 12 thousand mark for hunters. It’s bounced up a little bit, bounced a little down.” He says the highest population of doves tends to be in southern Iowa.

“When we had some counts through the Fish and Wildlife Service that seemed to show the better numbers down there. I think maybe it’s just a mixture of maybe more pasture down there and maybe some small grains showing up down there. And you’ve got a nice interspersion of landscapes. You’ve got a little bit of hedgerows and those kinds of things rather then when you get up here to central Iowa you’ve can have a lot corn and beans for a long ways and not much else there,” Bogenschutz says.

Dove season is September 1st to November 29th, with a daily bag limit of 15 doves, and possession limit of 45. Legal shooting hours are from one-half hour before sunrise to sunset.

Deer licenses already sold out in some counties

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Deer licenses have been on sale for almost one week now and have already sold out in some counties.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources spokesman Mick Klemesrud says the number of licenses is about the same with a few adjustments for the number of antlerless licenses available in individual counties.

“We had 11 counties where the quantity increased and we had 11 where the quantity decreased. But, by-and-large most of the state is similar to previous years,” according to Klemesrud. He says there are a variety of options available for hunters.

“What people want primarily are the ‘any deer’ licenses. And you can buy an any deer license for a gun season — like first or second shotgun — and you can by an any deer license for an archery season,” Klemesrud explains. “You can get those two licenses and you can buy and ‘antlerless only’ deer license. In early September you can buy as man of the antlerless only licenses that are available as long as the quota is still open in the county.”

September 15th is the date when you can start buying the remaining antlerless deer licenses remaining in each county. The antlerless deer licenses are for female deer, and Klemesrud says the number of those available in each county is adjusted to control the deer population.

“For example, down in Ringgold County we have 1,600 antlerless licenses available — so we’d like to get a little more pressure on the does. In counties like say Pocahontas, we don’t have any extra up there because we’d like to see the population come up a little bit. So, it’s used as a management tool,” Klemesrud says. He says the tags can be snapped up pretty fast in some areas.

“Especially with some of these counties that have limited numbers of antlerless licenses. Like Tama for example — the first county to sell out — that had 200 antlerless licenses and they’re gone by the first day,” Klemesrud says. “Other counties we are seeing fewer numbers, Boone County has 300 and they are almost ready to sell out. Same with Buchanan.”

You can find out which counties still have licenses by going to the DNR’s website. He says go to the hunting section and there is a quote link that shows how many antlerless license remain in each county. An Iowa deer license costs $28.50. Kelmesrud says you can buy a license at some 700 locations around the state.

 

Supreme Court rules law allows quarantine of CWD deer, not land

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Judicial Building

The Iowa Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the landowners who fought a quarantine after chronic wasting disease was found in captive deer at their preserve.

A captive whitetail deer taken at the Pine Ridge Hunting Lodge tested positive for CWD in 2012. Tom and Rhonda Brakke own the lodge and the deer came from their breeding farm in Clear Lake.

All the animals were destroyed and the facility was disinfected.  The DNR issued an emergency order that required them quarantine the land for five-years, saying wild deer could still be infected by getting onto the land.

The Brakkes appealed the emergency order saying the DNR did not have the authority to do so and it was unconstitutional taking of their land.

The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the district court ruling — saying the law gives the DNR only the authority to quarantine the deer — not the land. The ruling says if the Iowa Legislature wants to expand the quarantine powers as suggested by the DNR, then it is free to do so.

And the Supreme Court ruled the quarantine was not an unconstitutional taking of the Brakke’s land.

Here’s the ruling: CWD quarantine ruling PDF

The Iowa DNR released this statement on the ruling:

As the state agency created and tasked with protecting Iowa’s natural resources, including Iowa’s world-renown white-tailed deer herd, we respect but are disappointed with the decision issued today by the Iowa Supreme Court in Brakke v. Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

The Department’s quarantine of Pine Ridge Hunting Reserve was intended to prevent the wild deer herd from accessing the chronic wasting disease exposed soil on site. Chronic wasting disease prions exist in the environment without a live host.

Chronic wasting disease may be devastating to the health of Iowa’s deer herd. Among others, this could impact the more than 200,000 Iowans who hunt, which contributes more than $300 million annually to local communities.

(This story was updated to add the DNR Statement.)

 

Weather had an impact on wild turkey hunt this year

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Figures recently released from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources show turkey hunters harvested 11,800 birds this year.

Wildlife biologist Jim Coffey says that’s 400 below last season. “I think that’s just kind of the case of our hunters this year — our hunters are a little bit beholden to the weather. And our second weekend we had some rainy conditions, and that’s typically one of our big weekends to be out hunting. So, that’s probably what accounted for that little bit of a drop,” according to Coffey.

He says they keep track of turkey numbers every year with a survey. “It varies across the state, and turkeys are kind of a fickle species, they are up and down every year. And that’s why we do our summer brood counts to get an idea of what to expect next year,” Coffey says. “We expected a little bit of a drop in the southern part of the state, but we had some good numbers in the northern part of the state and that kind of balances our overall when you think of statewide averages.”

There were 50,000 turkey tags purchased for the spring hunt, but only a small percentage took home a bird. “Only about 20 percent of Iowa turkey hunters are going to be successful,” Coffey says, “and I always like to put it into a sports analogy, we are playing on their home court. They know where the draws and ravines are at, they are a predator-related species, so they know everything is trying to get after them so they are always wary and they’ve got great sense. So, it is not an easy sport to participate in.”

The weather has raised a few concerns about how well the turkeys will fair in raising their offspring. “With any ground-nesting birds, turkeys, pheasants, quail, woodcock — any of those, woodcocks included — cold, wet springs are a big nemesis,” Coffey says. He says wild turkeys are a lot different then the domesticated ones, and their weight can vary quite a bit.

He says on if you shoot a young bird known as a Jake, which will weigh about 17 pounds or an adult bird, which can weigh from 22 to 28 pounds, depending on how active they have been. Coffey says the male birds are focused on mating in the spring and will actually lose weight during the mating season. Hunters are asked to help the DNR with collecting population information during its annual turkey count in July and August.

You can go to the DNR website and report online when see a turkey.

DNR may have no option left but to close some state parks

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After a decade of declining state taxpayer support, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources may be forced to close some state parks.

“We have no choice,” Chuck Gipp, the agency’s director, said during an interview with Radio Iowa. “You’ve got to have people.”

Gipp said there’s just one full-time person manning 22 of the state’s parks. If any of those 22 people retire in the next 12 months, Gipp hopes to be able to transfer someone in from another park. However, that may not be possible and some parks may be closed.

“We will continue, as we always do in the department, to do the best job we can with the resources that are available,” Gipp said. “We just want to let people know that we can’t continue to face the reductions we have over the last few years and still provide those opportunities.”

Gipp has had to reduce the number of “seasonal” staff who work in the parks during the summer by 25 percent, plus there’s been a hiring freeze in place for full-time staff in his agency.

“Parks don’t run themself,” Gipp told Radio Iowa. “When people come to a park, they want to experience mown grass. They want to have a clean restroom and things like that.”

Parks with tent sites, R-V hook-ups and cabins are generating some revenue from camping fees, so Gipp said none of those parks would be closed. There are other parks open just during daylight hours and those are most likely to be closed. The general budget plan Governor Branstad and legislators just approved for the Department of Natural Resources is less than half what it was 10 years ago.

Gipp said his agency will fulfill its regulatory obligations and will “do what it can” to keep operating as many parks and recreation areas as possible.

DNR walleye stocking operation sets record in egg collection

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Preparing to harvest the eggs from a walleye.

Iowa’s two walleye hatcheries in Spirit Lake and Rathbun are filled to capacity after what the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says was a record hall in the annual collection of walleye eggs.

Chief of Fisheries Joe Larscheid says the DNR crews were out from April 4th through the 11th collecting the eggs that will grow into fish. He says conditions started out just about perfect with the waters around 44 degrees, and that brings the walleyes, muskie and northern pike into the lake shores to spawn, making them easy to net.

Larscheid says the fish populations in the lakes where they collect the eggs are in an up cycle right now. “On East and West Okoboji lakes, Storm Lake, Clear Lake, our populations are doing really well. And so there were lots of nice size brood stock fish — which are the big ones — that were running to shore this year,” Larscheid says. “And we were able catch a lot of them.. and meet and exceed our all-time record for egg take.”

Netting crews collected enough walleye to produce 1,116 quarts of walleye eggs for the Spirit Lake hatchery and 914 quarts for the Rathbun hatchery. “We’re going to stock almost 160 million walleyes this year in Iowa’s rivers, streams, lakes and impoundments. Most of those are fry, fish that are one to two days old, sometimes three days old after they hatch Some we raise to about two inches long and we stock almost one million of those, mostly into Iowa’s interior rivers,” Larscheid explains. “Then we produce another three to four thousand larger fingerling fish that we stock in the fall.”

Walleyes do naturally reproduce in Iowa lakes, but Larscheid says they need to stock large numbers of fish to ensure that population keeps up and there are enough fish that survive. He says they’ve done a lot of research on the fish that are stocked and they know it takes a lot of walleyes to be able to get enough to survive so someone can catch them and take them home.

Larscheid says it will take around four years for the young walleyes to grow to the legal limit size for anglers to hook. Storm Lake could be one hot spot for walleyes this year. The collection of walleyes at Storm Lake showed a large number of the bigger fish, with the average growth of the female fish increasing by an inch compared to last year.

Photo courtesy of the DNR.

Water quality plan on tap as legislature enters final hours

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Des Moines River

The Iowa General Assembly may conclude today, but a few critical decisions remain. The House and Senate have not yet settled on a plan to address with water quality issues. Last night, the House endorsed its alternative. Representative Chip Baltimore, a Republican from Boone, said he’s the first to admit the bill “isn’t enough,” but Baltimore said it sets up a process to start.

“Water quality issues in this state didn’t just pop up over night. These are decades, if not centuries, if not millenia in the making,” Baltimore said. “We are not going to solve these problems with a single, in 10 years.”

The bill passed the House with the support of Republicans and Democrats.

“I’m going to support this bill because, God knows, something is better than nothing,” said Representative Mary Wolfe, a Democrat from Clinton.

Representative Cindy Winckler, a Democrat from Davenport, said the plan for how to spend the money was fine.

“Except that there is no new money,” Winckler said. “We’re just shifting.”

And Winckler voted no. She objected to using part of the sales taxes currently raised for school construction for future water quality projects instead. Winckler was in the minority, though, as the bill cleared the House on a 79-19 vote.

Republicans in the Iowa Senate endorsed their own approach on Wednesday, without the support of Senate Democrats.

“This bill provides policy and funding for long-term, collaborative, science-based, non-regulatory projects that I believe will move the needle in reducing the flow of nutrients into Iowa’s rivers and streams,” said Senator Ken Rozenboom, a Republican from Oskaloosa who is a farmer and agribusinessman.

The Senate GOP would eventually redirect gambling taxes that would otherwise be used for the construction and maintenance of buildings. Both approaches would provide some state resources to Iowa cities and towns that face pricey repair and replacement of sewer and drinking water systems.