Iowa Sportsman

Get into the outdoors.

Get Into The Outdoors

Get Into The Outdoors By Ryan Graden My wife and I have four daughters! You can all pray for us! But truthfully, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Having these young ladies in my life has been an incredible journey as we have raised them through the years. My oldest is sixteen and my […]

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Trophy Fish What Makes Em’ Grow

Trophy Fish What Makes Em’ Grow By Ben Leal As a lifelong angler I have had the thrill of catching some genuine trophy fish. As a boy, a trophy was anything bigger than the last fish I caught. And in one case it was one that never took the bait, but one I could clearly […]

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Primetime for Panfish

Primetime for Panfish By Kyle Wood March is a wonderful time of the year that can bring warm weather and with it, thoughts of open water. This leads most anglers to begin preparing for open water leaving many opportunities to fish areas with limited pressure. Some of the biggest bluegills and crappies that swim in […]

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Springtime Spawning

Springtime Spawning By Kirsten Lundy Largemouth bass are a worldwide favorite sport fish, and, luckily for Iowans, can be found across various types of water bodies all around the state. In fact, the Iowa DNR currently reports the presence of these bass in over 500 lakes and streams. So it comes as no surprise that […]

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“Never too Late to Find Your Trophy”

“Never too Late to Find Your Trophy” By Daniel Mauch It doesn’t matter if you are sitting around a campfire during hunting season or sitting around the dinner table with family and friends, Hunters always have a story they like to share. My most memorable and most emotional story was written November 12, 2014 at […]

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Spring Bass Fishing 101

Spring Bass Fishing 101 By Todd Reed Each March and early April around the state of Iowa people start to focus their thoughts on catching that first bass of the year. Spring is an excellent time of year to target bass around Iowa and most likely you will catch your biggest bass of the whole […]

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80 Years Collecting and Using Fishing Gear… Now What?

80 Years Collecting and Using Fishing Gear… Now What? By Tom A. Woodruff It all started in 1937 with a corn cob bobber used to fish off a sand bar in Long Crick in “Naturally” Louisa County, Iowa. Yes we always called a creek a crick there. Long crick and that darn corn cob bobber […]

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Buying Recreational Land: Part III

Buying Recreational Land: Part III By Tom Peplinski When you are buying any investment, the most important part about the “buy” is not letting your emotions get the best of you. Our emotions can get us to think we need something we really don’t. They can get us to believe what we know isn’t true […]

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Creating a Catman

Creating a Catman By Brad Durick DISCLAIMER: While this article should be very informative for getting a kid into catfishing it is also a gushing proud dad moment. Nobody thinks getting kids to participate in the outdoors is a bad thing. If you use social media you have probably come across a meme that says […]

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Best Crappie Baits

Best Crappie Baits By Ben Leal 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… […]

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