In Round 4 of Party Hunting in Iowa, I share some more deer drive experiences, have a couple of buddy hunts with Brian, a few deer get harvested, and some great memories get made.
I've always wondered what it was like to Party Hunt in Iowa. I've been hunting in a stand or ground blind since I was 10 years old and I'm now 41. So, hunting in a crowd, at any capacity, has never been my desired way to hunt. In fact, I was always looking for something that I could hunt by myself or with only a couple of my trusted hunting partners, like my father or a few select best friends.
But after I hunted in Iowa last season, I got a brief education on Iowa Party Hunting. My friend Brian is a Farmer in Iowa and has been Party Hunting with a group of guys his entire life and it included his father. Brian has continued the tradition of hunting with the group of farmers, hunters, family and friends that he had always gathered at Deer Camp with. When he invited me to come up and Party Hunt for the 2023 Shotgun 2 season, I was pretty excited to experience it.
My hopes of sharing this hunt with you is that you see a little bit of what I saw. My initial concerns included SAFETY, METHOD OF HUNTING, and IF I'D ENJOY IT as much as other styles of hunting.
I quickly realized that the group of hunters (which consisted of 20-30 people) were a hodge podge of individuals. There were very avid hunters that had harvested countless 170-inch plus Archery whitetails to their names. Then there were farmers that rarely spend anytime hunting in a stand but focus all their efforts on agriculture and cattle. Shotgun Season is a Vacation for the Farmers, and they very much look forward to it. Then there's the individuals that try to hunt as often as they can, but I don't think would be considered "die-hard" hunters and many of them traveled from different counties to merge together at Deer Camp.
The next thing I realized is that it wasn't at all about the hunting! Yes, of course we did a lot of hunting in hopes of harvesting a lot of deer, but that wasn't the core theme of the Shotgun Season. The core theme was based around the premise that these hunts have been tradition for generation after generation amongst these hunters. Each of them told stories of hunting with their grandfather, father, son, daughter, etc. The wives and children gathered back at deer camp each afternoon with crockpots full of delicious homecooked meals, fried fish, and dessert dishes. They drank beer, played card games, and boasted about their newest guns or ammo. They pointed at old racks on the walls and told stories of how each buck was harvested. They heckled one another about all kinds of crazy things that were worth tears of laughter.
SAFETY
They had maps printed and laminated for each property they intended to hunt. They got everyone together and discussed the plan of attack and setup the blockers and walkers by design. They made lots of phone calls to adjacent landowners to make sure they didn't have anyone hunting in a stand b/c they didn't want to ruin someone's deer hunt. They also wanted to make sure that safety was held at the utmost importance and that cattle had been moved to desired pastures so that the deer drive didn't disrupt the herds. The hunts were very SAFE, and I never once felt in danger of being shot at.
METHOD OF HUNTING & ENJOYMENT
Deer drives and party hunting are FUN!!! In fact, they are an absolute blast and in no way did I not have fun trying to harvest whitetails in this manner. I found myself getting the same rushes of adrenaline that I experience when I hunt from a stand. I didn't even have to be one shooting to experience the rush. The goals of the hunts are to harvest as many does as possible and shoot Big Bucks. Now, there were a couple of young bucks shot but that was because a few hunters were excited about the younger deer for eating and nobody was mad about it at all. The Farmers want ALL the deer shot!! In fact, they seemed frustrated when any of the deer escaped the drive. It was also a lot of fun to be encouraged to take longer shots or running shots.
If you have more questions about Party Hunting, then Page 36 of the Iowa Hunting Regulations is a great place to start:
www.iowadnr.gov/Portals/idnr/...
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