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Navigating Big Ice
Navigating Big Ice By Rod Woten Why does it always seem that the bigger a body of water you want to fish, the harder the fish are to find? If you think about it from a statistical standpoint, the bigger lakes have more water you have to sort through in order to find fish, which […]
READ MOREThe Bad Ice Angler
The Bad Ice Angler By Rod Woten Throughout my years in the ice fishing industry, I’ve fished more lakes than I can count from one end of the ice belt to the other. During this time, I’ve noticed several things that ice anglers do or don’t do that causes them to struggle. These things don’t […]
READ MOREBest Crappie Baits
Best Crappie Baits Crappie…animals that forage for discrete, isolated resources are often characterized as either “ambush” (sit-and-wait) or “cruise” (active) searchers. Juvenile white crappie, Pomix annularis, search for zooplankton prey using a salutatory search (SS) strategy. Unlike ambush and cruise, SS involves… Had you readers going there for a moment didn’t I… Well lucky […]
READ MOREBuying Recreational Hunting Land: Part III
Buying Recreational Hunting Land: Part III When you are buying any investment, the most important part about the “buy” is not letting your emotions get the best of you. It is the same idea when buying recreational hunting land. Our emotions can get us to think we need something we really don’t. They can get […]
READ MOREFeatured Story
Introducing Youth to Shooting Sports
I can still remember the day my mom told me we had to watch the next episode of “Buckmasters TV.” Being an oblivious five-year-old, you can only imagine how excited I was to see my picture pop up as their weekly winner of a FREE Buckmasters Daisy Model 840 BB gun. Bubba and Shotgun Red announced my name, and I was the proud new owner of my very first firearm.
I ran to meet the mail carrier every day to check for that long cardboard box. Watching “Buckmasters” with my parents fed my enthusiasm for the outdoors, but I was already obsessed with all things related to shooting at an early age. That BB gun gave me so much more than a tool to shoot targets with. It gave my parents an opportunity to teach me about gun safety. It gave me my first memories of being in the woods, tagging along with my dad and his .22 chasing squirrels and rabbits. It gave me another way to spend time with my younger sisters when they began to learn about gun safety. Most importantly, it sparked a lifelong love for hunting and target shooting.
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.