Iowa Deer Lease
Iowa deer lease land through Mid-America Hunting Association offers deer hunting advantages separate from other deer lease options.
We Agree With What Deer Hunters Want
Deer hunters seeking an Iowa deer hunting lease have created a lot of their own problems with the most vocal hunters seemingly the least interested in deer hunting or a lease.
Leasing Iowa hunting land has general issues as any where else and some specific to Iowa. The common issues include the not all compatible landowner and hunter goals.
The do it yourself whitetail deer hunter's goal in a lease is first the right habitat within a region of the state that has a trophy whitetail history. This is desired in combination with limited surrounding pressure in the form of less hunting pressure or higher quality whitetail management. That same ground must have sufficient acreage for freedom to maneuver and allow for plenty of loafing area away from the property lines. A tall order to fill.
We Work With Landowners To Reach A Compromise
Landowners want the maximum income possible after having heard the many Co-Op and coffee house rumors of the high payment someone knows someone else is getting. That same landowner seeks to limit liability and contact time with the hunters, unless of course that contact time comes in the form of more money by providing room and board.
Landowner and whitetail deer hunter goals further come into conflict with land use practices.
The landowner seeking maximum farming income through minimizes waste ground (wildlife habitat).
Hunters want food plots and year round non-farming/cattle use of the wildlife areas to limit human pressure and animal displacement.
Association Deer Hunter Feedback
I would also like to thank you guys for the advice over the past two years.
My first year I did hunt [location deleted]. I saw great deer but had no luck.
My second year, I drew an [location deleted] tag. I spent seven days hunting some great land in [location deleted]. I finally met another member by the name of Bernie (from Missouri). We spent one afternoon tracking a deer he had shot but were unable to recover the deer. He was a really nice guy and it is nice to know that this is the type of member that the staff is 
recruiting.
Anyway, during my week in [location deleted], I saw some great deer. I saw two really nice deer and had one about 37 yards out from my stand. Unfortunately, I was never able to get a shot off on him. On the second to last day, after a few days of light snow, I had a nice buck respond to my grunt call. I took the shot at 15 yards. He was by far the biggest bodied deer I have ever seen. I am guessing in the 230-250 lb range. He had only seven points because of some rack damage to his right side. It looked like he may have injured the rack during its time in velvet, or sometime during the prior season. The left side was perfect and he had great "[location deleted]" mass. Regardless, I was happy with the trophy.
I have enclosed three pictures of the Iowa buck. The "field" shot is not that great, but you can see how cold it was. The other photos have two deer. The deer on the right is the [location deleted] deer. The deer on the left is one that I harvested the week before coming to [location deleted].
It was a spectacular North Carolina deer. It is still incredible how much bigger the [location deleted] buck is than the NC buck who weighed 190 lbs. Thanks for all the help over the past two years. You guys, as well as, the club are exceptional and I hope that it continues for many years to come. I truly love hunting in the Midwest.
John
Iowa Deer Lease And Tag Draw
If overcoming these common deer hunting lease and land use issues Iowa offers additional lease hurdles. Mostly in the form of the non-resident deer tags being a competitive draw, meaning how to get tags in order to justify lease payments.
The non-resident deer hunter issue refers back to the Co-Op and coffee house landowner discussions. This is out of state hunters are willing to pay more for a deer hunting lease than resident hunters.
The issue returns to the basic of what the landowner wants. That is, maximum money for the hunting rights. And, what the hunter wants. Maximum hunting from that ground. This opposing dynamic continues and is typically a cascade effect.
That cascade effect is the non-resident when he does get an Iowa deer tag seeks to enjoy that tag and has been more willing than local hunters to pay higher costs for hunting rights. The end result is either a non-resident pays the higher than average cost, the landowner holds out to just before the season and takes any payment (limited scouting and selection opportunity for the hunter), or the land goes un-hunted as the landowner wants payment or nobody hunts.
Maximum money for the landowner to sell his hunting rights to the land typically means leasing to more than one hunter. This is frequently from year to year or to a group that works out who hunts when and where when one or more successfully draws an Iowa deer tag. It does not take much experience to now see how this deer lease issue begins to get complicated fast when dealing with more personalities. How many golden nugget spots will there be on any one deer lease? And, how much deer hunting pressure can that one spot receive before the shine wears off?
Association Deer Hunter Feedback
Jon, John, & Shaun,
Bow season isn't over yet, but the best of this year is more than likely behind us. The time I spent in [deleted] this season was outstanding. To watch bucks that I normally only see in magazines and on television doing their thing in the woods near my stands was a surreal experience.
I'm very pleased to have harvested the animal pictured. But, as it always seems to go when bowhunting, I saw a couple that were bigger. If only they had come a little closer.
Anyhow, I just wanted to take the time to say thanks for providing the opportunity for a bowhunting addict to get his fix. Any success we have in the field is partly due to Mid America’s efforts to provide quality habitat to hunt and fish. Time off from work is a precious thing, and I’d much rather spend it in the field as opposed to knocking on doors just trying to find an opportunity to get there. It's a neat thing that our buying power as a group allows us access to big leases that none of us could achieve alone, and you guys are where the rubber meets the road. Thanks for making such good use of our resources. It is much appreciated.
Brennan
Work Arounds
Another option that some have executed is to continue to pay for their Iowa deer hunting lease to include years when no tag is drawn. This land is then offer up as a sublease. This option may initially seem like a good idea until examined from a liability standpoint.
In this case the liability more than doubles simply due to product liability on top of the safety issues involved when pay to hunt replaces free access.
Once payment or compensation of any type is exchanged be it cash, whisky or labor for hunting rights that hunter turns from guest to an "invitee" (a legal term defined as the provider being responsible or liable for the invitee’s performance not just to himself but extends from that invitee to others as well).
As an invitee the landowner even if unknowingly has a sub-deer lease holder on his land is liable for the performance of those the lease purchaser brings onto that landowner's property by any means of a sublease or as simply as a friend that comes to have a look. Is this likely to result in losing the farm in a lawsuit? Probably not, however who wants these kinds of headaches. After all, there are probably thousands of deer leases offered, sold and purchased by a multitude of different personalities in a lot of states and the courts are not yet choked with deer hunters and landowners over lease liability issues.
Deer lease issues continue and are especially difficult as those written with a number of provisions causing landowners to rethink their offer. Deer hunters accepting a lease agreement without provisions rarely gets what he truly has in mind.
No deer lease is universal. They all have limits imposed by the sellers and expectations of the buyer. How to get these two sides of lease provider and consumer together is the crux.
The hunter always desires a full deer hunting lease as he wants to develop deer attaching habitat, stands, blinds, shooting lanes, mineral spots, year round access limited to him alone and freedom of access at all times on and off season.
Busy with life landowners want a hunter on their place as often as a suburbanite homeowner wants an religious evangelist knocking on his door.
Landowners want the highest bid for the shortest amount of time and hunters know full well it will take three years to develop a whitetail lease to fruition or prove it worthless. And, at this point is when the hunter as a stereotype begins to show hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is between the pay to hunt and the "average" hunter that believes deer hunting is becoming a rich man only activity.
The First Hypocrisy
The first hypocrisy involves the deer hunters that blames deer hunters for the rise in the whitetail deer hunting costs and subsequently the cost of hunting itself.
This argument avoids the landowner's right to earn a living from any resource that he may have be it a personal talent, specialized trained skill or deer hunting land. Remembering our society is one of capitalism, it should be of no one's consternation that someone with a resource should seek anything less than what the market will carry. To expect that would be to expect the landowner to be foolish. I would be willing to bet these same deer hunters that make this argument would never consider working their job for another company at a lower wage!
Second Hypocrisy
The next hypocrisy is the deer hunter that expects something for nothing citing public hunting land that if there was more of it then more hunters could enjoy the deer hunting sport.
Hummm, just who pays for that public deer hunting land? Typically one of two sources pays for all public land.
The first is the generalized tax that secures private funds via the government taking them indiscriminate of any class of citizen. The other source are specialized taxes such as those from the Pittman-Roberts act. And, regardless of the tax source it is the citizen that pays for public land and that same citizen that wants something for nothing would be the first to complain about a 10 cents per citizen yearly tax to purchase land for public use.
Third Hypocrisy
The next hypocrisy that rears it head when discussing deer hunting, hunters and leases is that the land being sought had to be purchased by the landowner at cost to his personal fortune. Taxes were/are paid for by the landowner at his cost. Land maintenance costs (a landowner replaced a pipe on a farm lane allowing tractor access to a field at $320 for the pipe and 3/4 day's time). In short land is not free so why should the "average" hunter expect free hunting access?
That same "average" hunter furthers his hypocrisy by having a $49/month cell phone in addition to his land line at home, consumes a case of beer a week, purchased a new bow with accoutrements for $1,200 and paid $4,500 for an elk hunt (but that's different says the hunter as that was a guided hunt). The point is we (deer hunters) will pay for what is important to us and complain when what we want is more cost than we are willing to pay. Deer hunters are far more willing to pay for something tangible they can hold in their hands (bow) than a service or usage fee such as a deer lease.
Final Test
One final test that any deer hunter seeking to lease hunting land should take to give himself a reminder of just how good we have it here in the USA would be to talk to any military service member and hunter that has been in Europe or Great Briton. Ask them their first hand hunting accounts of how easy or difficult it was for them as the "average" hunter to hunt anything anywhere.
That is it for this Iowa deer hunting article as we will not continue the many discussions that remain such as who addresses trespassers, the lease holder or landowner? Or, the pitfalls of group leasing.
At the cost MAHA charges it would be prudent for anyone to hunt with us just one year and then compare that experience to running their own deer lease in Iowa or elsewhere.
