The morning wasn’t shaping up the way I had planned. With barely an hour to go until daybreak, the rain drops were rolling off my roof. Under the driveway yard light, the goose trailer was hooked to the truck and ready to go. But those decoys wouldn't be heading anywhere today. The semi-remote corn
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Antique Shop Treasure Ignites Duck Hunting Memories Clear Lake’s Don Humburg was an Iowa outdoor legend. Hunter, trapper, master angler, boat builder, decoy maker, you name it -- if it happened in the great out-of-doors, Humburg could do it and do it well. As a conservation crusader, Don was a tireless worker in the early days
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       High Plains Pronghorns Provide Outdoor Thrills On the high plains of western Dakota, autumn has arrived. Down in the valleys and creek bottoms, the cottonwood and aspens have turned a brilliant gold. Up here on top, the distinctive blue green of wild sage and bright red of dwarf rosebud offer colorful contrast to the tawny
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                            Arrayed in a dazzling cloak of pure white, the great egret is one of the world’s most spectacular birds. A long-distance migrant, the huge bird is equally at home on northern Minnesota lakes during summer and balmy West Indies lagoons in winter. In Northern Iowa, the month of September offers peak viewing as migrating egrets,
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     Strong Hunter Turnout – Good Success For Iowa hunting enthusiasts, the Labor Day weekend is a big time, nonstop, action-packed event. The 2017 dove season began September 1st, and although large numbers of doves had already migrated out of the state, most of Iowa’s 10,000 participants appear to have enjoyed anywhere from good to somewhere
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  Booming From the Mists of Nowhere is a reading adventure -- our latest best chronicle regarding the life and times of America’s greater prairie chicken. For those who love native prairie and the prairie chickens that inhabit its open spaces, this book is a mandatory read. Written by Greg Hoch and published by the University
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Mix the sugar water; lock and load the feeders. The fall migration of ruby-throated hummingbirds has arrived in North Iowa. For anyone wishing to view good numbers of these tiny travelers; there’s no better time than now. Keeping an eye on backyard nectar feeders is one of the easiest and best ways to get a close
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  My initial exposure to the ancient art of duck hunting was a memorable occasion. I had barely settled into the blind when the first flock of web-foots appeared. They were blue-winged teal, on the deck and traveling at warp speed. As they passed the blind, the birds suddenly took interest in our decoys. Executing a
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  Iowa’s fall dove season begins Sept. 1st, when around ten thousand licensed hunters are expected to take to the fields in search of North America’s most abundant migratory gamebird. According to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service surveys, dove populations in the “Lower 48” stood at 279 million on September 1, 2016. During the 2016 dove
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    When leaves fall and autumn winds blow, Iowa duck hunters can anticipate a strong migration of southbound waterfowl during 2017. That’s the official assessment from this year’s North American Breeding Duck and Habitat Survey released today by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Conducted every year since 1955, the continent-wide annual survey measures trends in duck
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  Smelly and disgusting, the scene was anything but pretty. No one would argue that the highway cleanup crew was facing a nasty job. But in spite of sweltering summer heat, foul odor, and grisly conditions; the crew was enthusiastically engaged in the task at hand. It was a dirty job, and they were doing it. In
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  For Iowa deer hunters, it’s never too early to start thinking of fall. I was reminded of this fact this morning when, just after sunrise, I spotted a group containing four mature, bachelor bucks. Standing in an open grassland, the deer were a sight to behold. The antlers on three of the bucks had already
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