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Iowa Pheasant Hunting Advantage

The Iowa corporate hog farm focuses its effort on hog production in the form of interior to a barn hog rearing. To support that are large grain crop fields. The key difference between a corporate large acreage operation to a small acreage farmer is diversification. The small acreage operator is likely to have crop fields and livestock on the land. The corporate farm typically does not graze livestock in what hunters would call wildlife cover and the farmer calls waste land.

Further, these corporations do not forage their cut crops with cattle. They do not expend fuel and machine hours on fall crop stubble plowing. Both of these practices enhance pheasant populations through leaving waste grain on the field through the winter.

These same Iowa corporate hog farms do not hay lesser crop land and do not graze waterways leaving cover habitat further enhancing Iowa's hunting.

These corporate farms are specialist unlike the small farmer that diversifies to use every possible land resource he may have. Such diversification is often at the expense of pheasant protective cover and food source.

Iowa pheasant hunting includes quail coveys and singles dog work. The pont picture above is of a single quail after the covey point and flush. This covey took the hunt from the crop field into an adjoining fallow pasture. The hunter seeking a good, for the wall picture, more so than another quail in the bag.

This Association's Advantage

Now enter MAHA into this equation towards land lease - paid do it yourself hunts. MAHA brings to the corporate farm operation the pieces of the puzzle missing and inhibiting the average Iowa hunter's access to what is now prime wild pheasant habitat.

MAHA assumes responsibility for self guided pheasant hunter land access freeing the corporation from being annoyed (actual words used by a corporate farm owner) by pheasant hunters entering sanitized hog operating areas and distracting employees with requests to hunt. These requests were routinely denied.

The suburbanite may relate to the Iowa farm owner and the hunter in terms of Saturday afternoon door to door religious advocates seeking to covert the homeowner to their brand of religion. Neither the hunter seeking the farmer's time is any more welcome than the religious advocate ringing the suburbanite's door bell.

A second Iowa pheasant hunting MAHA advantage is our coverage of the corporation, as we do all our landowners, with a multi million dollar insurance rider complete with certificate. That is the final minimum requirement to sit at the negotiating table and work out the lease contract specifications.

This then leads to further amplifying how the average pheasant hunter cannot access these corporate Iowa farms. The insurance premium is expensive and beyond the means of any one average hunter. Add that to the land lease dollar per acre costs of these farms that run into the thousands of acres and the cost far exceeds what the average pheasant hunter can afford.

This is one value of MAHA. We get the pheasant hunter on land of good Iowa habitat that would otherwise be beyond their reach.

Anything Good Comes At A Cost

The annual Association fees paid by any one hunter does not cover the cost of much acreage. Take into account that amount of acreage each hunter will hunt in a day's time and on any single trip.

Each hunter will cover about 400 to 600 acres of pheasant cover in a day. He may not actually hunt that much land, but will cover a good portion of it along with his dogs. To get that amount of cover acreage in a region predominated by crop fields will take double that amount hunted - at least.

To have 400 - 600 acres of huntable pheasant cover may require 1,200 acres or more gross Iowa farm acreage. If we were just to pay a $1.00 per acre that would be a cost of a twelve hundred dollars per day per hunter. If that pheasant hunter hunts a typical week of vacation time from Sunday to the following Saturday, 7 days having used the earlier Saturday and latter Sunday for travel, that Iowa hunter would access $8,400 worth of land. Compare that cost to our annual membership fees and the entire year's membership costs does not pay for one day's worth of lease land at $1.00 per acre.

Add to the MAHA advantage that the pheasant hunter can be hunting a different field each time stepping from the truck of every day of every hunting trip. And, he can do so in Iowa, Kansas and Missouri. That little bit of added adventure of being on new ground beats walking the same field every weekend.

With our hunting lease land approach not limiting us to the driving distance around a fixed lodge we can lease land in the region of the state that gives us the best return for our money. Meaning better upland bird hunting for quail and pheasant.

Having several such regions across Iowa, Kansas and Missouri further allows us to have regions of better hunts when managing the details of variable weather conditions affecting reproductive success. Those that seek just one social hunt a season will find none of this of value. Those that train, hunt and live with there bird dogs year round will quickly agree that such flexibility is required to sustain years of hunts.

Tall grass hunting is what many self guided pheasant hunters seek. This motivation has been heavily reinforced by many hunting magazine articles featuring such hunts. The real reason for the articles is the tall grass hunts are easy.

Hunters will hunt the tall grass in this Association as well. However, those with pointing dogs will also hunt other habitat types. The chance to have some variety to the cover will give a bit of motivation to hunt some more. Contrast that to the monotony of tall grass hunting. After getting hit in the face once too many times by the high grass most will agree it is time to hunt some other cover.

The tall grass hunter is more often than not either dog less or has a flushing/retrieving dog. Pointing dog pheasant hunters hunt the grass as well as brush filled draws and crop edge. Especially so for a pheasant hunter that enjoys the dog work above that of birds in the bag. In this case of the pointing dog tall grass pheasant hunter he does so for the enjoyment of cover variety.

This variety of cover habitat is a do it yourself hunter advantage. This allows the hunter to pick where to hunt. The converse is to follow a guide around or be in a line of drivers/posters. In the case of Iowa pheasant hunting cover the more open blue sky nature of its shooting will leave little excuse for missed shots.

The better the dog power the better the pheasant hunt on multiple cover types.

Iowa Pheasant Hunting Page 3

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