Check Out Our Current Issue!
In the April 2026 Issue of the Iowa Sportsman
- Best Places for Early Season Open Water
- Building a Foundation for the Field
- Range Safety Tips
- Building a Farm Pond to Hold More Wildlife
- Shed Antlers: Do they really tell us anything?
- What Makes a Great Food Plot
- Keeping Kids Engaged in Turkey Hunting
- Pre-Spawn Bass
- Springtime Panfish-Perch, Crappie, and Bluegill
Click Here To View This Issue Now!
Back to the Basics
Back to the Basics Basic drills are where a great bird dog begins. The basic drills are where bird dogs maintain greatness. I like to think of basics as building blocks. Once my dog consistently accomplishes a foundational skill like retrieving, I can add a layer and start doing memory retrieves. After my dog consistently […]
READ MORE
Favorite Small Game Cartridge
Favorite Small Game Cartridge I have a picture of my grandpa, Ron, sitting on a mountainside in Colorado with his Ruger 22 Single Six on one knee and a Gray Jay sitting on the other. My grandpa was an avid outdoorsman who used to travel to Colorado for an annual elk-hunting trip. One of his […]
READ MORE
How to Find Spring Turkeys
How to Find Spring Turkeys There have been many times throughout my turkey hunting years that I have heard the phrase “There aren’t any turkeys on my ground”, or “I only see turkeys when I’m deer hunting, but never in the spring”. In my early years I never thought much about it when people said […]
READ MORE
Fishing Iowa in March
WHAT TO TARGET FOR MARCH The month of March is characterized by rapidly rising daily high temperatures, with daily highs increasing from 41 deg to 56 deg over the month. Southern reaches of the State will likely have open water by the end of March, if not sooner. Central Iowa will have fishable ice, depending […]
READ MORE
Featured Story
Springtime Panfish-Perch, Crappie, and Bluegill
Spring is in full swing here in Iowa, and what can be more pleasant a reminder than the sound of birds, the sight of flowers blooming, and the feel of a warm afternoon? I can think of at least one more thing…Panfish!
I can remember it like yesterday, our family would all meet up at the lake house. There was work to do. The yard was to be picked up, the cabin cleaned, and the dock had to be put in. But then, after the work was finished, it was time for all of us cousins to fish! We would all go out to the garage to pick out a few old rods and tie on a hook and sinker as best we could.
The next order of business was to hunt for worms. Flipping anything that we could find stuck in the ground in hopes of just finding a few crawlers. Once the bait was secured, we were ready to fish. We would go out on the dock and cast, vertical jig, and even troll along the side of the dock. We usually did pretty well use those tactics, but my all-time favorite was walking along the rocks on shore and dropping the bait down every little crevice, not knowing what was going to come up next.
Created By Iowans, For Iowans
The Iowa Sportsman website and magazine are Iowa’s only privately owned media sources catering to hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts here in Iowa. Simply put, we are unlike other Iowa outdoor media sources: All our staff is from Iowa, from our publisher to our writers. We actually follow through on what we advertise; we provide knowledgeable content from people who know the industry or sport discussed.
