Outdoors

Ice anglers have a good number of different baits and bait styles available to them. One of the most popular and effective bait styles for ice fishing is spoons. Look in the tackle box of almost any angler who fishes through the ice and you’ll find at least a couple and probably quite a few spoons...

DES MOINES — Get out your binoculars. These raptors can only be found in Iowa during the winter as they breed elsewhere — maybe you'll get lucky and catch a glimpse of these winter residents. Most common in the bluff country of northeastern Iowa, golden eagles can be found from November through March. ...

Turkeys are odd-looking creatures. With their bumpy red heads, hanging flaps of skin around their faces and large tails, wild turkeys are quite a sight. The odd parts of their bodies also have interesting names and purposes. Let’s look at some of the body parts that make a turkey unique...

DES MOINES — Have an extra deer at the end of the hunt? Maybe you bought an extra tag, to hunt longer? Consider donating to Iowa’s Help Us Stop Hunger program. HUSH works with 66 participating lockers to provide high-quality meat to needy Iowans, through the Food Bank of Iowa...

Solid early ice ... that’s what ice anglers are looking for. For many, it might be their Thanksgiving wish: “Please give us some solid, safe early ice!” Oh, and one more thing: “... with no heavy early snows!” Guess what. Maybe, just maybe it might happen...

DES MOINES — Nearly four weeks into the pheasant season and hunters are finding success similar to the August roadside survey forecast — good hunting in central and north central Iowa; spotty hunting in southern Iowa. Southern Iowa success — or lack thereof — has likely been influenced by the amount of corn still in the field. ...

Thanksgiving was a special time for my wife and me this year. We took our daughter and her three children to Branson, Missouri, which I deemed as a homecoming. You see, my wife and I have been traveling to Branson for nearly 20 years. It’s kind of become a home away from home for us. ...

DES MOINES — Deer hunters will soon be trading in their bows for shotguns and body harnesses for blaze orange vests as the calendar turns to December and the first of Iowa’s three main gun seasons begin. And based on reports, it looks like hunting will be good, if the weather cooperates...

Ice fishing fever ... it’s all around. Area bait shops have had their ice fishing open houses, we’ve had “Black Friday” specials and Mother Nature has teased us with temperatures that put a skim of ice on the shallow ponds and even some of the shallow lakes...

There are a few concepts for ice fishing that are really good starting points. If you’ll practice these concepts, with minor revisions every time out, you'll be more successful on the ice this ice fishing season. In any type of fishing, you need to fish where the fish are. We keep on the fish a couple of different ways depending on how thick the ice is...

In so many cases, the fall sets up the early ice bite. At the very least, what happens as the lake freezes sets the course for the beginning of winter. There are variables each winter that influence the location of where we find walleyes at early ice. Some of the outcomes of some of these variables can be predicted ahead while other outcomes are figured out after the fact...

DES MOINES — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Polk County Conservation Board, city of Des Moines, Polk Soil & Water Conservation District, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship — Division of Soil Conservation and other partners started working in 2008 to improve habitat and water quality at Easter Lake on the southeast edge of Des Moines...

We were fishing largemouth bass on a lake in Minnesota this late October. It was a beautiful day and the thought never entered my mind that this could be the last trip of the year. Since then the weather has cooled noticeably, and there has been ice on the ponds here in north Iowa for several days...

On Thursday, Nov. 8, I attended the Iowa Great Lakes Fishing Club’s annual fall club meeting at Godfather’s Pizza in Spencer. Designated as DNR Night, fisheries biologists, district law enforcement and local conservation officers spent the evening giving the 100 or so members updates on their areas of expertise. ...

Green Iowa AmeriCorps is working hard in your area. It is a branch of AmeriCorps ― a national service organization ― that is operated out of the University of Northern Iowa's Center for Energy and Environmental Education. Green Iowa has eight locations throughout the state, one of the newest sites being Iowa Lakeside Laboratory. ...

DES MOINES — Enjoy the spectacular views and cool weather this fall fishing in northeast Iowa’s hundreds of miles of trout streams. From easily accessible streams in state or county parks, to those found in Iowa’s most wild and remote natural spaces, there are plenty of places to catch rainbow, brown and brook trout...

DES MOINES — In May 2016, President Barack Obama signed the National Bison Legacy Act into law, which made the American Bison the national mammal of the United States. While 20-30 million bison used to roam across North America, unregulated shooting and habitat loss led to their population to fall to only 1,091 by 1889. ...

I was at an ice fishing open house at a retail tackle shop recently. There were some anglers there who had been looking at a long range weather forecast. According to this forecast, cold weather is headed to the Upper Midwest, and these anglers were guessing that they would be on the ice in north Iowa by the end of November, maybe even earlier...

You know what’s funny? I find every season to be my favorite season. Spring, summer, fall and winter ... each of my outdoor activities fall into one of these seasons. How lucky can a person be! As each season moves toward its end, I may still be in that season’s activities, but I am also beginning to transition and think about the upcoming season...

DES MOINES — Bats are a great addition to any backyard — not only are their nightly aerial acrobatics fun to watch during the summer, they are also an excellent source of pest control and will kill loads of those pesky mosquitoes! One of the best ways to attract bats to your yard, if you don’t have any of their preferred dead trees, is to build (or buy) a bat house! During the summer, there are a couple of species of bats in Iowa that roost in large colonies; the big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) and little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus). ...

Winterizing your boat, just as with any cleaning procedure should be done before moving to another lake and when putting your boat away for the season. This will help prevent the spread of aquatic nuisance species. Flush your outboard engine with fresh water using flush muffs (or a similar device) attached to the raw water pickup. ...

Halloween decorations are often centered around arachnids — the family of creatures with four pairs of legs that includes spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks — of some sort. I think it’s just because spiders and their relatives are considered creepy with their many legs and fangs. Yes, all spiders have fangs, and most have venom in them. However, most spider poison will not harm people because it’s quite weak...

Whether you’re after fish in open water or through the ice, your lure presentation is one of the most important considerations for success. Since ice fishing season is fast approaching in many areas, now is a good time to think about lure presentation as it applies to ice fishing...

I’ve been pheasant hunting for over 60 years, beginning back in the days when I was a youngster growing up on the farm in north-central South Dakota during the famous Soil Bank years. In those early years, I was simply a walker and a pheasant carrier, my dad’s answer for a 2-footed flusher! Yet, it was fun because I could walk along with my dad, my uncles and several neighborhood farmers. ...

The courtesy dock is removed for the season. About 1,600 rainbow trout were stocked on Nov. 7. Use small tube and twister jigs, in-line spinners, casting spoons, and live minnows or crawlers fished under a bobber. Water temperatures are in the upper 40s. ...

When my son, Curt, said he had a couple of days off and wanted to take me fishing, you can be sure I said, “You bet!” It’s not every day that I get that kind of invitation. The plan was to fish Big Spirit and see what kind of perch action we could find. As is often the case when it comes to fishing, no two days are alike...

It’s that time of year when some anglers are starting to think about ice fishing, but there are still a good number of anglers who are open water fishing. Regardless of how or where or when we fish, anglers want to catch fish. To do so, we need to figure out where the fish are, what they want to eat, and how they want to eat it...

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Kabele’s Trading Post, owners Thane and Tanya Johnson are putting on the final touches for the sixth annual Shop with the Pros Day scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 10, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m...

DES MOINES — Thousands of hunters in blaze orange took to the fields when Iowa’s pheasant season opened Saturday. And with the second highest pheasant population in a decade, hunters can afford to be optimistic. “We have good pheasant hunting across the state where we have good habitat,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife research biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources...

Stan’s Bait and Tackle is planning its second annual Ice Season Kickoff on Saturday, Nov. 3, starting at 8 a.m. According to owner Travis Harman, “Last year went really well, and we are really excited for this year’s event. It’s designed to be more of a casual atmosphere. We want people to come in and view all of the ice fishing products, and just enjoy talking about the products and ice fishing.”...

It’s autumn throughout the Midwest. In some areas the trees are alive with color, in more northern reaches the trees are losing their leaves. A sweatshirt feels good in the mornings, we’re several games into the football season, and the early migrating birds have pretty much left. And, best of all if you like to catch fish, now is an outstanding time to do so...

Among the list of 2018 inductees into the Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame is longtime fishing educator, tournament angler and local fishing guide John Campbell. “It’s exciting and a great honor,” Campbell said with a smile. “I have always admired those who have made the Hall of Fame and enjoyed reading about their contributions to the fishing world.”...