Iowa’s furbearer harvest season opens statewide on Nov. 1, and for the 12,000 dedicated furharvesters, the prospects for the 2008 season are good.

“Furbearer season offers good recreation in the outdoors and is a good season to introduce someone new into hunting or trapping. Raccoons are the primary, bread and butter species for furharvesters and they are in ample supply nearly everywhere,” said Ron Andrews, furbearer biologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Don Sievers, 59, from Jefferson, plans to be setting traps on opening day. Sievers was born into trapping and has been trapping most of his life. Growing up near Walnut, Sievers listened to his dad tell stories about trapping, hunting and fishing with his brothers. When he 8 years old, his father bought him and his brother a dozen traps and took them out on their own trapping line and he has been trapping every year since, except for a few years while in the service.