North Iowans Pay A Unique Tribute to America’s Veterans Honkers for Heroes organizers, Zane Kantaris [front left] and Jason Hahn [front right] admire a Canada goose bagged by Vietnam veteran Gene Hockenson [right rear] of Plymouth while Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and two-time Purple Heart recipient, Matt Macke [left rear] looks on.  Staged last
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After catching his breath, the victor seeming none the worse for wear. While pondering my next move, the deer suddenly turned and began moving up the trail, leading directly to my stand. For Iowa’s 70,000 archery deer hunters, November is the grandest month of the year.  By now, the annual rut is slamming into overdrive.  Restless, edgy, and
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I heard the ducks before I actually saw them.  Not the familiar quacking normally associated with waterfowl, but rather the screeching “Who-week, Who-week” that is the signature greeting of a female wood duck.  Sitting atop a downed log, I was huddled within the tangled confines of a shallow wooded swamp where the birds -- eight or nine of them
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I wasn’t until I was in high school that I saw my first peregrine falcons.  Well, sort of.  The birds were actually a pair of mounted specimens perched atop a fake, papier-Mache cliff ledge behind the glass window of a wildlife diorama in St. Paul, Minnesota’s Bell Museum.  Although the work was flawless, the taxidermied birds lacked spirit –
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DULUTH, MN. --- In the dense evergreen forests of America’s North Country, the fall raptor migration is gathering a full head of steam.  Pouring down from Canada, the flight includes birds of prey of all shapes and sizes from tiny kestrels to gargantuan twelve-pound golden eagles.  Although the grand passage can be viewed from a variety of locations, there
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Iowa’s September teal season is the best thing that’s happened to duck hunting in the past half century.  Timed to take advantage of early migrating blue-winged teal, the season is offered to Mississippi Flyway states by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as a sixteen-day, teal only bonus hunt.  The special season is referred to as a bonus because the
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Mix the sugar water.  Fill the backyard feeders.  The fall migration of the ruby-throated hummingbird is underway.  For those wishing to obtain an eyeball to eyeball encounter with our tiniest feathered travelers; there’s no better time than the present. Although some of the hummingbirds we’re seeing may be holdovers from birds raised right here in Iowa, the bulk of the population
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Duck hunters can expect to see strong waterfowl numbers during the 2019 fall migration and hunting seasons, says the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in a report released earlier this week.  The assessment was based on data gathered during this year’s North American Breeding Duck and Habitat Survey.  Conducted each year since 1955, the continent-wide annual waterfowl survey measures trends
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Intelligent, adaptable, unbelievably resilient; the white-tailed deer is one amazing creature.  The white-tail’s resilience – its ability to survive under extreme circumstances -- has never been more evident than it has this spring and summer.  Everywhere I go, I see does with fawns. So, what makes this noteworthy?  To put things into proper perspective, we need to look back to
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Following months of austere reclusion, resident families of sandhill cranes are beginning to appear.  Stealthily prowling marsh edge, cow pasture, and bean field; crane parents are busily teaching youngsters – more properly called crane colts -- the useful art of frog spearing.  Learning to successfully hunt frogs, snakes, and other edible creatures is a trial
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