Iowa's 2026 Nonresident Deer Draw: Gun Beat Bow in All 10 Zones

Iowa's 2026 nonresident deer draw favored gun applicants over bow applicants in all 10 zones, by 6.4 to 43.2 percentage points. The gap that matters more is the wait: a sure draw took 2 to 6 preference points for bow and 0 to 2 for gun. We checked all 20 zone-and-season rows against the Iowa DNR's 2026 drawing statistics, so a hunter planning next spring's application can price the season choice in points.

In the 2026 draw, the share of applicants who drew a gun license was higher than the share who drew a bow license in every one of Iowa's 10 nonresident zones. The gap was smallest in Zone 10, where 60.2% of gun applicants and 53.8% of bow applicants drew. It was largest in Zone 3, at 43.2 percentage points: all 362 gun applicants drew, against 196 of 345 bow applicants. The 10 zone gaps average 20.4 points, unweighted by how many people applied.

"Odds" here means licenses drawn divided by applicants who entered the drawing. Every zone filled its quota in both seasons except Zone 3 gun, where the state's table shows 364 licenses, 362 applicants and two licenses left after the draw.

A nonresident applies for one zone and one season, and Iowa orders the line with preference points. Under the 2026 application guide, an applicant who misses the draw is given one point and charged a nonrefundable $60.50 fee for it, and a hunter who skips applying can buy one point that year instead. The state's nonresident FAQ adds that points can be bought only during the application window, one per year. Points follow the hunter across zones and seasons, so a point earned on a bow application counts on a gun application later. When the state draws, it starts with the pool holding the most points and works down through pools with fewer, until the licenses run out or everyone has one, and a hunter who receives a general deer license goes back to zero points. The statistics note adds a limit: people who bought a point and did not apply are not counted in these tables, and the state says it cannot factor in how they affect the odds, because points are neither zone nor season specific.

Iowa publishes how many hunters drew at each point level and how many applied in total, but not how many applicants held each level. Because the draw works down from the pool with the most points, every level above the last one to win anyone was drawn in full. That lets us report the column that matters most, "points for 100%": the lowest point level at which every applicant drew.

Bow needed more points than gun in all 10 zones, by 1 to 4. Zones 4, 5 and 6 sit at the top for both seasons, at 6 bow points and 2 gun points. Zones 2, 7 and 9 took 4 for bow and 1 for gun. Zones 1, 3, 8 and 10 took 2 for bow, and Zone 10, where the odds gap was smallest, still asked one more point for bow (2) than for gun (1).

The headline percentage ranks the zones differently from the points. Zone 2 had the lowest bow odds of the 10, 33.7%, and a sure draw there took 4 points. Zone 4's 51.4% looks like a coin flip, and a sure draw took 6.

At zero points the picture splits. Nobody with zero points drew a bow license in any zone. In gun, zero-point applicants drew in seven zones and did not in Zones 4, 5 and 6, and the share of zero-point gun applicants who drew ran from 13.4% in Zone 7 to 100.0% in Zone 3 (our figures, worked out from the state's totals).

The 2026 application guide divides 6,000 general deer licenses among the 10 zones and says no more than 35 percent of a zone's licenses can go to the bow season. The bow quotas in the state's table sit at that ceiling in every zone, rounded down to whole licenses: Zone 4, for example, has 448 bow licenses out of 1,280. Applicants did not line up on the same split. In Zone 5, 1,431 people applied for 560 bow licenses while 1,703 applied for 1,040 gun licenses, and in all 10 zones bow made up a larger share of applicants than of licenses. The tables cannot say why so many chose bow.

The source is the Iowa DNR's 2026 nonresident deer drawing statistics: one page with a Gun table and a Bow table that list, by zone, the winners at each point level from 0 to 7 or more, plus the quota, applications and licenses awarded. We rebuilt the applicants, quota and licenses-drawn figures for all 20 rows, and they match the table above.

"Points for 100%" is our reading of the state's counts and rests on the draw order the application guide describes. The level one point short of it was decided by lot, and the state's counts pool that level's applicants with everyone holding fewer points, so they cannot say how good the odds were there.

People who only bought a point sit outside the applicant counts yet carry their points into later draws, so a future cutoff can move for reasons this table cannot see. Next year's odds depend on next year's applicants, so read the point levels as a picture of last year's queue.

The application guide lists muzzleloader as its own season choice, and the table has only Gun and Bow columns, so we cannot say where muzzleloader applicants are counted. Odds compare licenses with applicants and say nothing about deer numbers or deer quality in a zone.

Our rule is to decide between gun and bow before picking a zone. In 2026 the season alone moved the points needed by 1 to 4 in every zone, so a hunter content with either should take the shorter wait. The application guide lists the trade: a bow season that runs Oct. 1 to Dec. 4 and again Dec. 21 to Jan. 10, 2027, against two regular gun seasons, Dec. 5 to 9 and Dec. 12 to 20.

The 2026 window ran May 2 to June 7 and has closed. Iowa DNR says the deer application window always runs from the first Saturday in May through the first Sunday in June, and points go on sale in the same window, so the next chance comes next spring. Two points was enough for a sure draw in every gun zone in 2026 and in the four bow zones that took 2 (Zones 1, 3, 8 and 10). For a sure gun draw the price is small: no points in Zone 3, one point in six zones and two in Zones 4, 5 and 6. Bow asks for time. Points arrive at one a year, so a hunter starting at zero reaches 6 points after six years, and the sure draw in Zone 4, 5 or 6 comes on the seventh application, if 2026 levels hold.

If you apply as a group, the guide assigns every member the point level of the member with the fewest.

For where to aim a tag once you hold one, see The Two Iowas. For the longer game of building points across Iowa and Kansas, see The Non-Resident Point Game.