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Listen Now! To the Iowa Hunting and Fishing Report

Watch the October 6th Iowa Hunting and Fishing Report!

Fishing: The fall bite is on! Panfish are still biting, the walleye bite is finally starting to pick up too.

Hunting: Congrats to all the youth hunters who were able to fill their tags. Bow season is now open, movement has been okay.

This week's sponsor of the Hunting and Fishing Report is Polk County Conservation's controlled waterfowl hunting program. Waterfowl hunting blinds at Chichaqua Bottoms Greenbelt in NE Polk County can be reserved by calling the Chichaqua office at (515) 323-5395 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The twelve blinds are located in both marsh and woodland settings. Blinds cost $30 per day and hold up to four hunters. Reservations are available for both the early split (October 10 – 16) and late split (Oct. 24 – Nov. 30).

Click here to reserve your blind today!
https://www.polkcountyiowa.gov/conservation/things-to-do/hunting

Iowa Hunting Fishing Report

Check Out Our Current Issue!

Bowhunting Iowa Boone & Crockett Bucks

A Classic Evening with an Iowa Giant – Bowhunting Boone & Crockett Bucks Does a plan ever fall into place the way it should? The months leading up to October and November are filled with daydreams of target bucks making their way in front of our stands. Perfect conditions, with a shooter buck coming in […]

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Tips for Finding Pressured Pheasants

Tips for Finding Pressured Pheasants As the season takes its toll, pheasants get more anxious, educated, and seemingly less flighty. They’ve seen it all: dogs, multiple-person drives; now it seems as if they’ve become dormant. Where did they go? What will it take for you to change your game to get into more birds? Look […]

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Lessons Learned from the Duck Blind, waterfowl hunting

Lessons Learned from the Duck Blind: Waterfowl Hunting Tips

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Trapping Bobcats

Trapping Bobcats I remember the first time I saw a bobcat like it was yesterday. It was nearly 20 years ago, back when I was in high school. I was bowhunting in a timber when some movement caught my attention. Coming from the south, a big male bobcat was sneaking along the creek. I watched […]

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Featured Story

Big Buck Profile: The 2025 Gandy Buck

Ok, this first big buck profile is a little self-serving in that it is of a buck that I personally took this past deer season. While it is likely not the “biggest” big buck that we will profile this year it is definitely one of my most special deer ever.

Turning a Dream into Reality

As has been noted in several articles since 2023, my family and I finally put together the means to purchase our very own piece of Iowa ground. “The 32,” as we call it, has become a passion project to see if we could take an unassuming piece of real estate and harvest a mature deer from there by giving him all he needs in the way of habitat. This year was the first year that the farm would be huntable in the state in which we intended due to construction projects over the past couple of seasons.

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Created By Iowans, For Iowans

The Iowa Sportsman website and magazine are Iowa’s only privately owned media sources catering to hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts here in Iowa. Simply put, we are unlike other Iowa outdoor media sources: All our staff is from Iowa, from our publisher to our writers. We actually follow through on what we advertise; we provide knowledgeable content from people who know the industry or sport discussed.