Funny how a few inches of fresh snow can really make backyard bird feeders come alive.  That’s what happened across most of Iowa this week when a fast moving winter storm dropped anywhere from 4 to 15 inches of white stuff on the state last Sunday. Although a wide variety of birds stopped by to raid
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By the time late January rolls around, a lot of bird hunters will have enjoyed their fair share of pheasant breast recipes.  I agree that properly prepared pheasant breast is a real taste pleaser.  But every once in awhile it's also fun to shift gears a bit.  Here's a quick and easy way to break
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  Falconry: the pursuit  of wild game with a trained raptor; the sport of hunting with hawks. Humans have been chasing wild game with trained hawks for somewhere in the vicinity of 4,000 years now, making falconry one of our most ancient forms of hunting.  I’ve been practicing the sport for 30. t its most basic level, falconry
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Iowa's late archery seasons [deer and turkey] closed January 10th.  But that doesn't necessarily mean it's time to stow the bow.  There are still plenty of reasons to roam the winter woodlands and pursuing the gray squirrel is certainly one of them.  Although squirrels don't present much of a target they are abundant and-- with
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    Late Season Archery - Round 1: I could already tell that it was going to be a challenging morning in the great out-of-doors.  The overnight temperature had plunged to ten degrees below zero and increasing NW winds were howling in excess of 30 mph.  Wind chill values were at 40 below – or an even more
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  North Central Iowa:  Six beautiful inches of new powder fell on the region this week.  But for most people, the natural winter beauty was soon overshadowed by subzero temperatures, polar winds and wholesale school and other public events closings.  By the time daylight arrived this morning, temperatures had dropped to ten below and increasing NW
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  No matter how many time I've seen it, I am always amazed at the way late season Canada geese respond to new snow.  Highly educated, December Canadas are usually smarter than the people trying to hunt them.  As long as the ground is bare, the birds are safe.  They can spot a phony decoy spread
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  Spend enough time in the out-of-doors and, sooner or later, you’re going to witness an event that is so over the top -- so overwhelmingly improbable -- that you’ll be reluctant to tell your story to anyone -- including your closest friends.  My end of the season archery deer hunt was one of those occasions. The
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  Intermittent morning flurries had turned to steady snowfall by mid-day, and the weatherman was calling for additional accumulations of three to five inches.  It didn’t take a genius to determine that whatever waterfowl remained in the area would be in a panic.  Canada geese and mallard ducks would be looking for corn and were probably
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  A lot of folks are still wondering what happened to all those thousands of mallards that blew through Iowa a few days ago.  Well, it appears as if a lot of them may have already ended up in Arkansas.  This year's just completed November duck survey revealed that Arkansas has recently been inundated with an
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  “Have you thus sat on a snowy day and squinted through the white curtain at those mail-carrying bluebills?  Until you have courted bluebills in the snow, you have not tasted of the purer delights of waterfowling.”  Gordon MacQuarrie  November, 1937 _ Although I love all types of waterfowl hunting, I especially love hunting that group of ducks collectively
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Even by Northern Plains standards, the season’s first winter storm was one for the record books.  The massive weather system -- officially dubbed Winter Storm Astro -- roared onto the mid-western scene on Tuesday, November 11, delivering subzero wind chills and dumping more than a foot of snow on portions of Minnesota and Wisconsin.  In
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