As many of you already know, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  I love the big family gatherings.  I love getting together with friends.  I love the traditional foods -- roast turkey, homemade dressing, cranberry salads, and that thick slice of pumpkin pie to top it all off. Wild Turkey – A time honored symbol

For Iowa’s 60,000 archery deer hunters, November is simply the grandest month of the year.  When it comes to pursuing the ever popular, ever elusive white-tailed deer, November is the ultimate game changer.  As the fall rut goes full throttle, monster bucks – those behemoths that have remained totally invisible for the entire year --

October 2023 --- Following a long and frantic search – a search in which everything I owned had been turned upside down -- I had failed to find my missing decoy.  This was no ordinary decoy, mind you, but one of a set nine beautiful canvasback drakes hand crafted by legendary Mississippi River waterfowler, Ralph

November is a month of intense migration.  A time when high winds and, maybe even the season’s first snow squalls, send northern holdouts winging for the wintering grounds.  But not all autumn migrations occur in the skies.  Some happen on land.  In Iowa, the most dramatic of these fall land movements are conducted by a most

                                  Opening Day Meets Expectations Iowa’s much anticipated, centennial pheasant season got off to a roaring start as hunters from across the state – and in some cases, from across the nation – gathered to pursue Iowa’s number one gamebird.  Rooster Pheasant – The ring-necked pheasant is Iowa’s number one gamebird.  With statewide pheasant numbers currently at

One of the things I most love about hunting wood ducks is that quest often leads to some of the most unspoiled, picturesque, stunningly beautiful wetlands the landscape has to offer.  Shy and reclusive, wood ducks inhabit the most isolated habitats they can find.  Preferences include densely vegetated willow swamps, beaver ponds, and the long

If there was a single month of the year that I could grab, put in a bottle, and keep forever – that month would be October.  For those who love the out-of-doors, the month of October offers an unparalleled array of sights and sounds.  Fall colors achieve their peak during October.  Our marshes and woodlands

If you’ve not yet seen or heard a big old bullfrog booming from the edge of your favorite fishing hole or duck pond, hold on.  The time is coming when you will.  Whether or not you view that statement as good news or bad is largely a matter of personal perspective. A native inhabitant of Mississippi

Spring Surveys Remained Largely Unchanged             When the days grow cooler and autumn winds shift to the north, Iowa duck hunters can expect to encounter good numbers of waterfowl during the 2025 hunting seasons.  Although six of the ten key surveyed species showed a slight to moderate increase, a combined survey total of 34 million ducks

This year’s multi-segmented, multi-zoned Iowa duck season kicks off with a statewide teal-only hunt beginning September 6.  Although Iowa teal seasons have traditionally allowed for 16 consecutive days of teal hunting, the season will be trimmed to 9 days for 2025.  According to federal [U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service] guidelines, a 16-day teal season is only

After a year of enduring things like weather, migration, and the rearing of youngsters, a bird’s feathers began to show their age.  The annual replacement of those worn feathers is called the molt.  For birds like male cardinals, the molt merely consists of trading an old red feather for a new red feather.  For others,

With its four-foot height, ear-piercing call, and six-foot wingspan; I think you’d be hard pressed to find a bird with more charisma than the crimson-capped sandhill crane.  After a century of absence, sandhill cranes are becoming increasingly common across Iowa.  Nesting cranes are currently documented in more than 40 Iowa counties with the greatest densities