Iowa Quail Hunting
Iowa Quail hunting within Mid-America Hunting Association is in south central Iowa.
Our private land hunting is within the Grand River Watershed that rises north from Missouri. This area has low rolling hill grain farms dissected with wet and dry drainage's making much edge cover. Predominate farming is soybean and corn. The same protective cover and food source quail land as the more well known north Missouri quail hunting region.
This is a foot hunting only Association of self guided hunters.
This Association has in excess of 20,000 acres of land in south central Iowa. The lowest acreage of our three state region. Our Kansas and Missouri acreage is greater. Dedicated quail hunters prefer Missouri to avoid Iowa's pheasants. Those that prefer more pheasants than quail hunt Kansas. Association Iowa hunting land acreage map.
A Good Day
The kind of picture all who quail hunt would like to take each hunting day. Each hunter's dog power, willingness to walk and shooting ability will determine each bag.
Iowa Quail Cover
Some of Iowa's prime upland bird habitat. The one above is at opening day. Notice the standing corn that makes for some tough hunts. The bright sun was as warm as it looks. By noon most are through with their early season hunts. By mid winter all these adverse effects have changed. Reliably, dog friendly colder weather and concentrated habitat exists to a better degree. Compared to our southern Kansas leases they remain warmer later in the season.
Iowa does have some tall grass. While not prime quail habitat this field did have a covey.
Our southern Iowa leases and that of north Missouri are similar with their large grain crop fields of corn and beans cut by the mostly dry drainage's. That is an in-field drainage center to left in the picture.
Another view of a must hunt spot. There is more cover habitat just barley visible separating the near and far field.
Why Iowa
Our Iowa quail hunting is a bonus for those quail hunters from the northern and eastern states seeking a shorter ride for wild quail hunting. Stopping off in Iowa on their way farther west for more Kansas pheasants or south into Missouri for quail only hunts.
The hunter will be well pleased with the easy to walk fields and frequent blue sky shooting.
While the flushing and retriever hunters pass on quail in favor of the pheasant, the pointing bird dog hunters enjoy a full day of both. Those with the bird dog power to cast along the miles of drains for quail as well as the point stand off required for pheasant will find our Iowa land a good to great hunt.
The chance to work a single dog on both wild pheasant and quail while on the same hunt, the same day on the same habitat as well as every day of the hunt will make it more enjoyable to continue the hunt.
Our Iowa quail hunting while a surprise to some has rivaled that of Missouri in some years. As weather environmental limiting factors change, our Iowa region allows for good or bad year flexibility of where to hunt.
When To Hunt Iowa Quail
Iowa has a split ending for its upland bird season ending the pheasant season in early January when its seasonal upland bird license expires. But allowing quail hunts until January 31. What occurs is that most do not hunt the quail only middle to late January period.
This time period, in our most northern of the three states of leases, typically allows for colder dog friendly weather and plenty of tree covered drainage's to block any wind. This allows hunting regardless how cold that overall winter may be.
This may be contrasted to the big open of Kansas even with its greater abundance of pheasants. Along with Kansas' open terrain comes wind and greater probability of higher wind speeds. On any given five day Kansas hunt one day or more can be counted on being windy to the point of scent cone degradation. On such days any upland bird hunter would appreciate the protected side of Iowa's abundant covey holding tree lines.
Few hunters hunt Iowa during this late January time as most by this point of the three month season have walked and hunted plenty. The hunt intensity has waned. An additional motivational degradation is the psychological block of having to buy another license at the season's end even though it is good for the subsequent fall as well.
For those that truly want to chase bobwhites and do so when seeing another hunter is at its least probability this 20+/- day period is the time to be hunting.
More About Iowa Quail Hunting Land
A single bobwhite walking down an Iowa road one late summer day. The rest of the covey was scattered about. This one stayed to allow us this picture.
Iowa quail hunting is largely in the grassed waterways and soft edge of the many drains that cross the farm fields. That is the key to this south central region.
This region is on the upper fringe of the Grand River watershed. This is the second largest surface area sub-basin of the Lower Missouri River Basin. It covers most of the northern center of Missouri extending north past the Iowa state line. Its many tributaries make for slow rolling terrain and many dry drains that provides bobwhite edge cover.
As many will agree it is the right quail habitat that makes for the better hunts. In this case the key factor is the watershed and the secondary effect of the non agricultural areas the watershed creates. This exemplifies as well why we have land in some very specific locations and no lease land in larger areas elsewhere. Our not operating a hunting lodge allows us to make the entire state available to the Association hunter of where to hunt. In the case of Iowa quail hunting it is this south central region.
Quail Hunting Value - Our ApproachA brace, plenty in the bag.
More importantly is the quality of the hunt. We will never advertise how many limits any hunter will bag. We offer only the opportunity for private land hunting on wild Bobwhite Quail for the self guided hunter. All may hunt any time during the season. They hunt at their own pace. All will have more land than time to hunt. This brings a tranquility of the quail are there. The land is available. The hunter looses the anxiety of if he will have a place to hunt and if that hunt will be good. Within this Association most of the hunters have good and better hunts. The hunters that have bad hunts soon stop hunting.
For the traveling quail hunter the question is often asked why pay for the entire season. Most travel to quail hunt a week hunt. Many two 1 week trips during the entire season. This argument continues that our approach is great for the local quail hunter and the traveling hunter seems to miss out. This is not the case.
A contrary idea is that most that travel to quail hunt do so as they can accomplish in one short trip far more than they can the entire season in their home state. And, in terms of the local hunter yes he does hunt the entire season typically at a two day weekend at a time rate spread across three months with two family oriented holidays taking away from that time.
The local hunter with the luxury of proximity further does not hunt in anything but the best weather conditions Thereby cutting down his days in the field. The same for his week long quail hunting vacation.
If he did hunt at least one half the available weekend days each of the three months that would make for 12 hunt days. Add a week vacation time and that is 17 days. Close to the two 9 day travel, 7 day hunt twice a year that is common to the traveling hunter.
This similarity between local and traveling quail hunters continues.
One other view point about our local hunters is that many of them also travel elsewhere to bird hunt, grouse, huns, chukar, blues as well as other quail. They too travel to hunt more of one bird type on a short trip. They do so for the same reasons as those that travel our way. That is hunt birds they cannot hunt in their home state.
In our attempt to remove as much of the mystery about our Iowa quail hunting as we can in pictures and text we offer a lot of cover photos. These two represent reasonable expectations of just how open and closed-in any of our Iowa quail hunting land may be.
Self Guided Quail Hunting
We have always operated since our beginning in 1965 as a do it yourself quail hunter operation. The original 4 local businessmen that started MAHA were all quail hunters. They wanted what we all want, a more efficient method by which to enjoy their quail hunting. They began in Missouri and later the Association expanded into Iowa. However, as good as all this sounds our quail hunting is not perfect.
One aspect we cannot overcome and probably should not is that every first year Association hunter will experience a twinge in his gut the first several times stepping out of his truck. This comes from hunting on land that he himself has not personally met with the landowner. There is not anyway around this effect and we have a long time tested method to overcome it.
We use the same county road maps to mark our lease land location as the county sheriff, utility Co-Ops and township road crews use to navigate. They are the most accurate around to include key features as local land marks and road surface quality. These two last features alone are missing from all of the commercially available alternatives we have explored. Trust in the maps we issue as we have been mapping our leases for a long time. Our maps will get all who can read a map to where they need to hunt.
The next thing we do is to post our leases with a unique MAHA sign that gives the hunter confidence he has found the right spot.
After these two aspects there is nothing for the new hunter/member to do except get out there and experience the hunt. That twinge in the gut will attenuate and later disappear entirely.
Bad Quail Hunting Guaranteed
The headline above is intended to get the reader's attention. We offer this illustration of how we can guarantee a bad Iowa quail hunting experience.
The common conditions that make for a bad hunt include:
The hunter lives in a non-native quail state.
The dog has experience on pen raised, planted or field trial quail - only.
The dog is beyond the early stage in life where learning gains higher standards of performance.
The hunter is out of shape.
Wild quail hunting is our highest risk, toughest hunt. It requires specialized dog power that is best developed with a first season pup and all the discoveries only possible when learning all things is new. The best dogs will run downwind edge only. They run the narrow edge band of cover coveys occupy. Wild quail hunting also requires hunter effort of willingness to walk and have the energy for accurate shooting. Easy to read and tough to do as all will find their swing lacking after three days of all day long cross country walking.
The first hunt and season wild quail hunting will be the worst. It is likely the first season to be very unsuccessful when compared to later years. It appears those that stick with it for three consecutive years quail hunt for life. Anyone that says no quail and quits before three years typically only dabbles in upland bird hunting.
Why life long quail hunters quit quail hunting has been shown to us for many years. Two factors above all others in isolation or conjunction end quail hunting. The first is the hunter's body no longer can take the rigors. More commonly, that hunter no longer has it in him for one more dog. All the more so if having that special connection with the current dog that certainly leaves us all too soon.
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