Upland

The Poor Man’s Bucket List

The Poor Man’s Bucket List By Earl Taylor It is easy to get all juiced up about hunting out west after watching a half hour hunting show where a celebrity hunter whacks a monster bull, buck or ram. Just as in ancient mythology where the Sirens called out to Oedipus to come to their beautiful […]

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Decoying Iowa Waterfowl: What You Need, and What You Need to Know

Decoying Iowa Waterfowl: What You Need, and What You Need to Know By Nick Johnson One of the most exciting aspects of waterfowl hunting is undoubtedly the use of decoys in fooling your quarry. Some make it simple and hike in or use a canoe or sneak boat to deploy a dozen or so decoys. […]

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Prep For This Season: First Aid Overview For Sporting Dogs

Prep For This Season: First Aid Overview For Sporting Dogs By Ryan Eder As I sit down to collect my notes for this article, I must reflect and share with you my experience this past week on a hunt I went on. It is nuisance goose season, an early time period prior to waterfowl season […]

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Cold Weather Care

Cold Weather Care By Ryan Eder Hunting season is finally here! The past offseason has been geared towards training dogs and hopefully keeping them in shape to prepare for the upcoming seasons. However a major difference is the fact that spring and summer temperatures are much warmer than what the late fall and winter bring…the […]

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Patterning Your Shotgun

Patterning Your Shotgun By Ryan Eder I love to joke with everyone and blame the choke in my gun for a poor shooting performance. “Man, I should have used a mod and not my full” is my signature tag line. The truth is, understanding your gun’s performance with different chokes is obviously important when we […]

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Thinking Small

Thinking Small Hunting in Iowa has changed significantly during my lifetime. Four decades ago wild turkey and deer were scarce or non-existent in much of the state. Most hunters started out shooting squirrels and rabbits before moving on to pheasants and/or waterfowl. Only then did they graduate to larger game, if they had access to […]

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Early Season Duck Strategies

Early Season Duck Strategies By Nick Johnson The onset of duck season stirs many emotions in a waterfowl hunter. It often starts with super early mornings and mild weather and the hopes that any prior scouting missions will prove successful. This is a chance for hunters to knock the dust off their gear, which if […]

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Commands in the Field

Commands in the Field By: Ryan Eder – President, Upland Gundog Association LLC, Goldeneyes Retrievers If someone were to ask you “what commands do you use most in the field” what would your answer be? Are we even aware half of the time of what we are saying to our dogs while hunting? Is our […]

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Quail Resurgence

Quail Resurgence By Troy Hoepker We’d witnessed Casey point plenty of pheasants before but on this point all four of her legs trembled uncontrollably like cold jelly. What lay in the weeds in front of her nose couldn’t be a pheasant? It was something she wasn’t sure of and to tell you the truth, neither […]

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Keeping Opening Day Simple

Keeping Opening Day Simple By Ryan Eder Avery Outdoors, Southfork Retrievers You’ve heard the KISS model (“Keep it simple, stupid”) before right? It applies to many things, why not opening day? We await opening day with an intense feeling of anticipation and excitement, but sometimes we let it get the best of us with unnecessary […]

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