CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Eli Polley, 16, was hunting with his family and grandfather during the Iowa first gun deer season. Eli was using his grandfather's old shotgun, a Browning Auto 5, 20 gauge. Eli waited until the buck was at 15 yards, and took his shot. Eli and his family come from a long line of folks who enjoy and participate in conservation through the purchase of hunting and fishing licenses. Eli hunted and took his first deer in 2018. He is continuing a long line in the age-old saga of predator-prey, the task of obtaining healthy protein to feed us and our family and friends.

Deer hunting season number two ends on Sunday, Dec. 17. As of mid-week statewide, over 78,000 deer had been taken by hunters.

Iowa regulations have a reopening of the archery and late muzzleloader deer seasons on Dec. 18, they will go through Jan. 10, 2024. By Jan. 10, the total deer off take will be close to 100,000 animals, a number well within the desired population control numbers that wildlife biologists want to achieve.

Hunters have an ingrained sense of responsibility and desire to become a viable component of the predator-prey continuum, doing the work needed to find food and bring it into its next level of furnishing us a great protein source. This cause to obtain food is as old as mankind itself.

From ancient days of hunter-gathering, when we were both predator, and prey, mankind had to adapt to very intense situations to survive. Our big brain did allow us to adapt, and protein from meat was a huge part of that equation.

An example from a book I read many years ago stated it well. The author, Jose Ortega y Gasset, in his book titled “Meditations on Hunting,” said “The cat hunts the rat. The lion hunts the antelopes. The sphex and other wasps hunt caterpillars and grubs. The spider hunts flies. The shark hunts smaller fish. The birds of prey hunt rabbits and doves. Thus hunting goes on throughout almost all of the animal kingdom. There is hardly a class or phylum in which groups of hunting animals do not appear.”

Many upland game bird hunters use a tool to assist them with finding, or locating a partridge, grouse, or pheasant. That tool, our best friend, is a dog. It could be a pointer or a retriever, but in any case, us humans long long ago came to understand the ability of the nose of a dog to smell things we cannot.

Over time and with proper training, the dog breeds were specialized to help hunters hunt. Dogs have the innate ability to decipher odor molecules of extremely minute amounts, alert us to that situation, and allow us to take the next steps. It hopefully will be the flushing of a rooster pheasant from cover, and then at the shot, if well placed, will bring the bird to the ground. The dog will continue to track the bird, find it, soft mouth it, and dutifully bring the dead pheasant, our next high quality protein meal, to our side.

I have read and reread Aldo Leopold’s book “Sand County Almanac” many times. Leopold stated how the natural hunting/tracking ability of a trained dog, a domesticated critter, has assisted mankind to find food for us, or in other cases help find lost people, because the nose knows.

“My dog, by the way, thinks I have much to learn about partridges, and, being a professional naturalist, I agree. He persists in tutoring me, with the calm patience of a professor of logic, in the art of drawing deductions from an educated nose. I delight in seeing him deduce a conclusion, in the form of a point, from data that are obvious to him, but speculative to my unaided eye. Perhaps he hopes his dull pupil will one day learn to smell.”

We are all hunters, even if some folks do not subscribe to the definition. In our modern world, and with a highly developed agricultural system, food is produced via the grains and grasses farmers and ranchers grow. On these fields of grasses we place livestock to graze, to eat the vegetation and transform it into muscle tissue (meat) that eventually ends up nicely wrapped in convenient packages at a grocery store.

When purchased, that meat represents a long line of production, in which the uncomfortable duties of killing, butchering and sending the final product to the store happens out of our sight. The purchase of packages of meat is the same as the age-old spear of a long ago ancestor on the plains of Africa.

It is the same as the lance dissecting a bison on the open prairie. It is the same as the arrow shot from a native Indian’s bow that takes a deer. It is the same as the bullet shot by a modern day hunter who also takes a deer.

If we think we are apart from nature, we are wrong. We are part of the long line of the web of life.

Properly understood and ethically administered, hunting will remain an essential component of life. It is proven every time a hunter immerses him or herself into the outdoor realms of forest, prairie or wetland, to partake and be a living participant in life’s journey.

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Measuring deer antlers is one of things this author does as a free service. I am certified to measure any of the North American big game animal horns and/or antlers that hunters may take.

I measure for two organizations, the Pope and Young Club (archery only taken animals) and the Boone and Crockett Club (archery, crossbow, firearms or even just found categories). All the data obtained is useful to biologists, researchers, and fellow hunters.

The data supports the theme that record book quality animals are not in any way shape or form of being over-hunted. That myth may be popular to a few but is just plain false. Facts matter.

As the Iowa deer season progresses, a few of the biggest and best, or just curious interests by the owners, are starting to come in.

I will be addressing those requests in the coming months. It is safe to say that the 2023 deer hunting seasons of Iowa will furnish more proof that a few top quality sets of deer antlers will again grace the future pages of hunting type publications, and for those deer hunters wanting to see some of the biggest and best, the next Iowa Deer Classic show will be held in Des Moines on March 1-3, 2024.

Mark your calendar now to make sure this wintertime escape from cold weather and snow is on your list of things to see.

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Photo contest entries to the annual contest sponsored by the Marshall County Conservation Board have a deadline of Jan. 31, 2024 at midnight. Photographs of nature related scenes made during 2023 are to be submitted by email to this address: mccb@marshallcounty.gov. Title your submission Photo Contest.

Each entry must have enough specific detail for identification — your name, address, a brief description of the image, and your phone number. Entry categories may be Scenic (Natural Resources), Native Wildlife, Native Plants, Open Nature or Outdoor Recreation. Winners in each category will get a $25 gift certificate.

Winning entries will be posted on Facebook from Feb. 5-11, 2024. Viewers who ‘vote’ for the People’s Choice will be contributing to the winning photo owner getting a $25 gift certificate.

Each year, the images submitted are outstanding, covering a wide array of wildlife, wild places, and people enjoying their time outdoors.

Time outdoors is healthy time well spent, never a waste, and valuable to understanding our relationships to the natural world. It always offers amazing opportunities to bring the camera into play, capturing a split second of time to record what Mother Nature presents.

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“In a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen.”

— Theodore Roosevelt

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Garry Brandenburg is the retired director of the Marshall County Conservation Board. He is a graduate of Iowa State University with a BS degree in Fish & Wildlife Biology.

Contact him at:

P.O. Box 96

Albion, IA 50005