| Window | Dates | Days |
|---|---|---|
| Season | 10 OCT 2026 – 31 JAN 2027 | 114d |
As publishedOct 10, 2026 - Jan 31, 2027
Iowa DNR regulations label this species 'Gray Partridge'.Blaze orange required. Shooting hours 8am-4:30pm.
Iowa DNR's August Roadside Survey (9 regions statewide) tracks gray partridge density by region every year. The species concentrates in the northern two-thirds of Iowa's open agricultural landscape, with the NW, NC, NE, and C survey regions consistently reporting the state's best densities and the southern third reporting negligible numbers. Historically strongest in the far-northwest counties where the species was first established after 1905.
Iowa's gray partridge season runs Oct 10, 2026-Jan 31, 2027, bag 8 daily/16 possession, blaze orange required. Partridge is tracked alongside pheasant and bobwhite quail by Iowa DNR's August Roadside Survey, which published its 2026 results September 1, but for partridge specifically the article gives only regional distribution this year, no numeric index: most abundant in the North-Central, Central, Northwest, and East-Central regions. The most recent numbers on record are still 2025's: partridge densities ran highest in the northwest, north-central, northeast, and central regions (3-4 birds/route), with the best county-level counts in Buchanan, Butler, Dickinson, Emmet, Fayette, Mitchell, O'Brien, and Palo Alto. Worth noting for context: even in that 2025 read, a year pheasant and quail both had genuinely strong, broad-based gains, partridge's own statewide increase wasn't statistically significant and stayed 47% below its long-term average.
No 2026 numeric figure was recoverable from the newly-published survey, only regional distribution. Historically (2025), partridge has lagged pheasant and quail's response to the same favorable weather, remaining well below its long-term average even in a strong year for the other two.
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