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Hacks Every Angler Should Know
By Todd Reed Each and every angler that makes a cast wants to accomplish the same thing, to catch a fish. Some anglers are quite serious about this task, while others fish to catch a fresh meal, or to unwind from the busy day. No matter what reason you go fishing, here are some things that each angler can do to help make fishing easier for them. #1 - Combine Line No matter what kind of reel you have, it was designed to have a certain amount of line on it. The spool should be full at all times. An easy way to save time and money is to line your spool with cheap 15# line until it is half [...]
Trail Cameras: Things you should be doing but probably aren’t
By Shawn and Kristi O'Connor The trail camera is the single most important advancement in hunting whitetails in the last 20 years. No other item in your hunting tool chest can help your success more than a trail camera. In the right hands, a trail camera is incredibly powerful, but as with any tool, it is important to understand how to use it. Unfortunately, most hunters make small mistakes that keep them from realizing the full potential that a trail camera can provide. What follows are tips on how you can improve your trail camera use, enabling you to capture more useful information and move you one step closer to wrapping your tag around a mature whitetail this fall. Orientation [...]
To Lease or not to Lease
By Earl Taylor I had parked at the gate and walked across the picked corn field in the dark. I set up my stand and was ready for first light. This was the first time hunting from this bottleneck and I was hopeful. I was hoping to see deer, but at first light, all I saw was headlights coming across the field. The truck parked within 30 yards of my tree and two noisy hunters began to throw tree stands and bows from the truck. They were surprised at my voice and my disgusted remarks as I climbed down and left. They had permission to hunt the neighbors land, and the shortest route to their potential hunting ground was through [...]
Float Tube Fishing
If you’ve read any of the articles I’ve written over the past few years, you’ve probably started to pick up on the fact that I’m a huge fan of fishing in the multitude of farm ponds found in our great state. One of my favorite things to say is that Minnesota may be the land of 10,000 lakes, but Iowa is the land of 100,000 farm ponds. I’m exaggerating when I say this, obviously, but the point is that Iowa’s farm ponds offer super opportunities to fish an under-utilized resource and catch trophy fish to anyone willing to knock on a door and ask permission. If you live in Iowa and you’re not fishing a local farm pond for trophy [...]
Top Reasons Fish Go Tight Lipped
By Todd Reed “The fish aren’t biting”, “I always catch them here”, This bait always works”. We have all said these things before and we have all had bad days out on the water. I am a firm believer that the angler is in charge of their catches about 90% of the time. They choose the lake, location, rod/reel, line, and bait to catch their fish. That other 10% when nothing seems to be working, or no one is catching fish are the days that leave many anglers shaking their head. What went wrong? Why can’t I catch some fish? Where did they go? These are the questions that often get asked when anglers strike out. There are four main [...]
It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This
Little did 14-year old Dalton Christoffer, a freshman at Estherville Lincoln Central in northwest Iowa, know when he headed for northeast Iowa to participate in the youth dear season that a trophy buck just might be in the picture. He was pretty sure that he’d have a chance at a nice buck. After all two years before, he had shot a nice 8-pointer in the same area, and since he began deer hunting at age 10, he’d shot a deer every year. “We hunt near Yellow River Forest by Harper’s Ferry,” says Dalton. “We always hunt the same area. My grandpa Christopher (who lives near there and is a longtime deer hunter himself) had been scouting the area and had [...]
Back to the Basics: New Gear Gives You No Guarantees
It seems like only yesterday my father and I were making a trip to Cabela’s in Owatonna, Minnesota to check out hunting gear. I was twelve or thirteen and had been planning my first deer hunt for a while through hours of watching and learning everything I could from the hunting channels we had on our Dish Network package. I remember watching all of the ads from all the different brands sponsoring various shows, and at the time, this is what I concluded would happen at Cabela’s: I would be buying either Mossy Oak or Real Tree camo, a Mathews Switchback bow (clearly the leader in bow technology at the time), Gold Tip arrows with Muzzy broad heads, and I [...]
Whiskers and Ditty Poles
One of my fondest memories of setting bank poles, or ditty poles as many call them, took place on the Des Moines River two summers ago. My friends Josh, Jarred and I fished for two nights out of Jarred's big twenty foot flat-bottom and camped along the bank. It was one of those trips where an angler really connects with the river and becomes a part of its mystique. I remember waking up the morning after the second night to heavy air and a quiet river gurgling by. Everything was in slow motion including us, struggling to pull ourselves from the sleeping bags after a big meal of fried flathead and frog legs the night before. Our lines which hadn't [...]
Fishing Myth Busters
No matter how often you fish, or don’t fish there are many people that have certain beliefs about fishing. What makes fishing better...what you can’t do when you fish. There are many myths about fishing that the common public say and truly believe in. Perhaps Grandpa said these things about fishing, or the guide you hired in Minnesota mentioned it one time. While there are many different reasons and circumstances that seem to make some days much better than others for fishing, the following “old sayings” or myths about fishing are simply not true. MYTH #1- If I have heard this once, I have heard it over a hundred times. “Fish bite better when it is raining” Typically people don’t [...]
Preparation = Early Season Bow Hunting Success!
By Ricky Kinder It goes without saying that preparation leads to success, and this couldn’t be truer in terms of bow hunting early season whitetails here in Iowa. If you want to harvest a mature whitetail buck during the early parts of bow season you need to get to work right now! Some of the most serious hunters that I know undoubtedly say that there past early season success stories has been a direct result of the summertime preparation work they put in during some of the hottest and muggiest days of the year. Below I have compiled a few preparations every hunter should be performing now or very soon to get himself or herself equipped for the fast approaching [...]
