Kansas Turkey Missouri Turkey Eastern Turkey Rio Grande Turkey Spring Turkey Season Fall Turkey Season 
About Costs Do It Yourself Hunts Expectations Turkey Gallery Lodging Membership Pressure Reservations Rules Self Guided Hunts Turkey Scouting Hunter Statistics Testimonials Youth Turkey Season Women Outdoors | Typically, during the early Iowa turkey season the birds are still in flocks and it is not uncommon to see turkey groups of 4 to 6 mature toms traveling with a half dozen or more hens requiring the best turkey hunting skills to draw the toms away. Being able to hunt all day on open terrain makes this phase of the breeding season and this state a desirable hunt for the hunter with both endurance and patients.
Until the fields are worked to plant to crop, the birds have a wide variety of food sources and their patterns at times may be unpredictable. Roosting areas may change from day to day, so with a short season it is important to be able to adapt to the daily behavior of the birds and adjust accordingly.
Locating a turkey flock and following them throughout the day to and from the roost has been a productive style of spring season hunting for our members throughout the years. While following a turkey flock, it is very likely to come across several other groups or toms on their own without a hen, which is a good opportunity to switch gears and zero in on a lone gobbler, if the opportunity presents itself.
A picture from a slow afternoon hunt with plenty of hens, but the toms kept slipping us wide. 
Robert W., like so many of our do it yourself spring turkey hunters hunts his turkeys alone. This is the one and only from his first and only Iowa turkey hunting trip. |
One of the greatest advantages of hunting Iowa compared to Missouri or Kansas is the lack of hunting pressure, especially on MAHA leased land. Un-pressured birds are much
easier to work with a call and more vulnerable to come to a decoy. No surprise in this statement. Its posting here is to identify tot he reader we recognize the elements of a good turkey hunt. A quality hunt is the product we know the hunter wants.
During the later seasons the hunting is very similar to north Missouri, but again, with much less hunting pressure and nearly the same population of eastern turkeys per square mile, that is along Iowa's southern boarder. Once the birds break up they can be on any given farm at any given time of the day,
but timbered creek bottoms, ridges and small wood lots should be habitat of choice to focus at this phase of the game.
If lack of time to turkey scout is a problem, setting up on the top of any timbered ridge or next to a wood lot at first light waiting for a gobble to move on is a very effective method. Hearing 5 to 10 gobblers or more at first light is not uncommon to our turkey hunters. Once the birds fly down they have ample forage to feed on in the timber and many green pastures and fields to strut on.
Many of our landowners encourage turkey hunting, since the population has expanded so much over the last 10 years. Lack of turkey hunting pressure has turned Southern Iowa into a quality Eastern turkey hunting locality. MAHA has 20,000 acres of prime leased land in southern Iowa with only a handful of Iowa turkey hunters hunting each spring. What more can an avid turkey hunter ask for.
On another day some toms came in, but the beards were just not what we were looking for after having seen some exceptional broad and long paint brush beards. This one came in several times and entertained us for pictures. 
One advantage the self guided wild turkey hunter has when being a member of this Association is the owner and operator, Jon Nee, hunts and has so since being a child, scouts the land prior to contracting, scouts the land pre season, supervises reservations, recommends new members where to hunt for what they are after, manages the budget and so on. In short he runs the entire show with the pride that motivates his effort to ensure everyone has the best experience possible. On the other side is John Wenzel, the one that most talk to when calling in for membership inquiries. His value to the Association and the hunter is that he is a conservationist running his own habitat development effort with his own no-till drill, farm and recreational enjoyment of watching nature while installing nesting and cover habitat on his own farm and that of his neighbors as a hobby. This is in addition to his own turkey hunting since a child, being out on the Association lease land 12 months of the year qualifying lease renewals. The bottom line in both cases when it comes to the land the the turkey hunter/member has two good sources to talk to on where to turkey hunt in Iowa as well as Kansas and Missouri. |
Iowa Hunting Iowa Deer Hunting Missouri Spring Turkey Season Kansas Spring Season Habitat Turkey Lease |
