hunting
Scouting Spring Toms
Scouting Spring Toms The doldrums of winter will soon be behind us. Spring will begin to spring forth, and a whole world of outdoor opportunities will be available to the Iowa outdoorsman. Shed hunting for deer antlers will be high on folks’ priority list. Finding delicious morel mushrooms will take high priority. Crappie fishing, and […]
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Fur Friendly Coyote Rounds
Fur Friendly Coyote Rounds By Troy Hoepker It all happened in an instant! The coyote exploded out of the ditch and through the heavy grass on a direct path straight at the caller! Only minutes earlier I had hung my caller from a tree limb and took a seat elevated on a pond dam overlooking […]
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All Things Are Not Equal
All Things Are Not Equal By Earl Taylor Forewarning; if you believe man and animals evolved from nothing, this article will not make much sense to you. There is a friendly banter amongst Iowa hunters about the hardest animal to shoot in the Hawkeye state. Each hunter believes the quarry he is chasing is the […]
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When Coyotes Won’t Commit
When Coyotes Won’t Commit By Troy Hoepker Their howls cut through the cold air with fresh exuberance but they held their advance stubbornly at the ridgeline to my west. Darkness was approaching on that cold winter’s afternoon that found me deep in the heart of a large tract of some of Iowa’s public hunting land […]
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Public Ground Gobblers
Public Ground Gobblers By Nick Johnson The words “public ground” conjures up all sorts of mixed feelings in a hunter. Some relish the opportunity to explore it and some dread it. Hunting on public ground is thought to be a lot more challenging and often without reward and while these statements may hold true in […]
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Benefits of Frost Seeding Upland Habitat
Frost Seeding Upland Habitat Have you ever wanted to improve your upland hunting and wildlife viewing success on private land? Maybe you have an area you can improve. Iowa has lots of monocultures of pastures that have overtaken idle areas. These monocultures lack structure and variety that wildlife crave, and in turn do not support […]
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Scouting for the 2023 Deer Season : Whitetails 365
Scouting for the 2023 Deer Season : Whitetails 365 It seems as soon as deer season concludes Jan. 10th, I am already looking forward to opening day of bow season October 1st. In February, we get outside to check for sheds and take inventory of which bucks made it through the gun seasons. Finding sheds […]
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2 DIY Taxidermy Projects
2 Do-It-Yourself Taxidermy Projects to Display Your Trophy When it comes to preserving the memory of time out in the timber we often turn to taxidermy to help us preserve the animal as well as the memory. I love walking into a shop or business and looking at different mounts on the wall. Each one […]
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Leveraging Perennial Food on Your Land
Leveraging Perennial Food on Your Land When we begin planning our food plots, often we focus solely on annuals. We focus on turnips, brassicas, radishes, and maybe some soybeans, sorghum, and corn. For the most part those are fantastic because they yield results right away, within a couple months. However, when it comes to long-term […]
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Early Season Shed Hunting: Extra Miles for the Piles
Early Shed Season: Extra Miles for the Piles Once the curtain falls on deer and pheasant season, I consider taking advantage of my last few small game opportunities, but my heart really belongs to the antlered critters, and I know they will soon be antlerless. Honestly, I love shed season about as much as I […]
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