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Iowa 10 Pointer

Tracker15

Active Member
Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
103
This story is about a journey to kill a good public buck a couple yrs ago. I have gone down to Iowa to hunt every few yrs and have taken a couple good bucks, but all of these have come off private ground that I’ve gotten on through family or knocking on doors. The yr. I shot this buck I decided I wanted to kill one hunting only public land and without any help. I wanted to hunt a better zone than I’d been hunting the last few yrs., so I drew a tag and the hunt began.

The first thing I did is scour maps and chose properties based off hard to access, good bedding, and surrounded by large chunks of private land. I found about 10 spots I liked and the work began. My buddy who was new to hunting and accompanying me on the trip joined me as we went down with cameras, hiking boots and a canoe. We floated down the river and climbed into some very remote spots setting up cameras that we planned to check at the end of summer. Long story short we put the cams out and checked them after summer and narrowed our spots down to areas that had good deer inventory. This spot was one of them. This spot was unique as we dumped a mountain bike 2 miles downriver from the hunting spot on public and dropped the canoe up river about a half mile or so from where we were hunting. The plan was to float down, hunt and then at end of night float down to the bike. Once there one of us would bike the 4 miles back to the truck and come pick up the other. We did this two times when scouting to make sure we knew how long it would take and make sure it wasn’t awful to do in the dark. It worked pretty well, but it wasn’t exactly easy, but killing big bucks yr. after yr. usually isn’t.

When November came a long it was go time. It was day 3 of our hunt and I had pasted a 4.5 yr broken up buck and a few others, but hadn’t see one I was happy to wrap my tag on. The night before I killed this buck the weather called for an East wind and colder temps and high pressure. I was happy to see that, but we didn’t have a ton of spots setup for an east wind. I looked over my maps and thought back to scouting and remember this spot. I thought this spot is a great funnel as it has two nice bedding flats to the north and there was a steep ditch that ran up into a fence line. There was a great trail that hopped over the east/west fence line and into the pasture. I decided I would go in with my lonewolf and sticks on my back in the dark and hang and hunt that spot in the dark. My buddy dropped me off and I walked in from the road across lady’s property that said it was fine to cross. He went onto another spot down the road. I got in without bumping anything and setup my stand. I was feeling confident, but after about 45 min of light and no deer I was thinking that I probably would only sit this spot til noon then relocate. About 15 minutes later I heard a stick break and had time to shuffle on my stand and get in the ready position. Coming from my north was a good buck, I saw he was a shooter and drew back when he was 40 yds out and hidden behind the bend. I knew if I waited I’d be trying to draw on him when he was 10 yds away. He came walking through on a steady pace and appeared to be covering ground. I murped him to a stop and let the arrow fly and hit him perfectly behind the shoulder. The arrow didn’t pass through though, and with the shot only being 13 yds I was a little concerned. I sat back down and thanked God for the glory was his. The opportunity was a blessing, and I felt fortunate to have. I tried texting my buddy but his phone didn’t have service. I ended up getting down 30 min later to check for blood at impact. I got down and went to where he was hit and looked for blood. I walked about 5 ft down the trail he was on and I looked up ahead and there he was laying only 30 yds away dead on the trail.

I was super excited, I didn’t go up to him though because I wanted to go up to him the first time with my buddy along so we could share the moment. Just there after I spotted him my buddy called and said he too had shot one, but the shot was back. He came over and helped me get my buck out and we went and looked for his about 4 hrs later and bumped him and never found him. The next day I joined my buddy on a different spot and was able to film him kill his very first bow buck. Talk about a couple of blessed bow hunters.



Things that I believe helped me be successful

· Run and gun hunting. I could have went to other locations and sat trees already setup with a marginal wind, but I instead did a run and gun set. Hunting run and gun sets is more work and meant getting up extra early, but it was worth it.

· Scouting…I spent many hours studying maps, hung cameras for inventory, and picked spots where lazy hunters wouldn’t access

· Timing…I waited to hunt til 11/8-11/16..this timeframe seems to be pretty good down in iowa

· Mobile setup… Hunting these areas is a BEAR with a lonewolf, 4 sticks, backpack and bow. That’s the whole reason I wanted to check out this “Saddle Hunting”. I believe that hunting out of a saddle will allow me to go deeper and farther and also be incentive to not hunt the same spots/trees as often.

Maps (Shows Terrain Best)
Yellow Dot near beans is kill stand
My access is in red coming from south east
Parking lot is to North (see compass in top right corner for directions)
Yellow dot to west is gate where I had camera and also a tree trimmed out
Red dot is camera location during summer
Yellow dotted trail is what most guys take from parking lot


Map Aerial (Current Vegetation)
Yellow X is where we beached canoe and trail we took up Hog Back to hang camera green oval
Blue dot is another stand location prepped, but not hunted



Canoe




My Buck




Home
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Trail Cam Pics of My Buck at Gate Camera




Pics of my buddy and his buck I video'd him shooting the following day. Another run and gun set on a freshly cut corn field (taken out day before) which we knew about and used that intel to go in and hunt the top of a cut near a big bedding knob in hopes a buck would come out. A buck ended up coming out down the woods a little ways down and came in to check a doe that had made its way over to us.



As he lay pic


A pic of our setup, we looked for a better tree but this tree was where we felt we needed to be so we made it work. We probably looked like 2 grapes on a straw up there, but we got away with it and the surprise attack worked
 
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Great story, great bucks, great hunt!!

It sounds like you already know all the benefits of saddle hunting. Time to add another tool to your hunting toolbox!!
 
I was at trackers place this week and he definitely has figured out how to find and kill big bucks. The picture of his man cave doesn't even come close to doing it justice.

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Excellent thread. Love it! Thanks for taking the time to write it up and share it with us!
 
Man that is just awesome! Would love to hunt Iowa one day. Guess I need to start applying to draw lol


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Let's start applying together. Road trip...Iowapalooza 2020

There ya go. There are lots of spots other than iowa that hold just as good of deer. I'm going to do a write up on this public buck from North Dakota from this yr. when I get some time
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There ya go. There are lots of spots other than iowa that hold just as good of deer. I'm going to do a write up on this public buck from North Dakota from this yr. when I get some time

Great buck. I've been trying to go to Missouri for several years. It just hasn't worked out. I've hunted several states in the midwest, but I need to hunt them all. Obviously.
 
Great buck. I've been trying to go to Missouri for several years. It just hasn't worked out. I've hunted several states in the midwest, but I need to hunt them all. Obviously.

I'd like to goto MO one of these years as well. I'll "tag" along if you want to go


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I know. $300 for non-resident. The big one in my profile came from Richmond, IN.

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I know. $300 for non-resident. The big one in my profile came from Richmond, IN.

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I live in south central Indiana most years I get a chance at a big one and usually I mess it up.
 
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