Friday, April 18th, 2025

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Friday, April 18th, 2025

Breaking News for

Sportsmen Since 1968

Iowa

Here’s how to properly hold fish in the catch/release era

Is there a right way and a wrong way to hold a fish?
During a time when fisheries conservation demands regular catch-and-release, the answer is a resounding yes. Once it’s out of the water, properly handling a fish is paramount to ensuring it swims away as strong as when it came topside. Whether you’re removing hooks for a healthy release or positioning that personal best catch for a quick photo, there’s a common-sense approach to take in order to get fish back with little or no physical effects to them.

Here’s how to properly hold fish in the catch/release era

Is there a right way and a wrong way to hold a fish?
During a time when fisheries conservation demands regular catch-and-release, the answer is a resounding yes. Once it’s out of the water, properly handling a fish is paramount to ensuring it swims away as strong as when it came topside. Whether you’re removing hooks for a healthy release or positioning that personal best catch for a quick photo, there’s a common-sense approach to take in order to get fish back with little or no physical effects to them.

In Focus

All About Hunting

Patience is often the right approach in turkey hunting

As a new turkey hunter, the minute I heard a gobble in the distance, my first instinct was to get up and head towards the bird, cutting the distance between us. 
The second thing I remember doing often was moving by 7:30 a.m. when I hadn’t heard anything close. In both situations, my youthful inexperience kept me from having the patience needed to be successful. And don’t misunderstand, I still struggle in that area.

Well designed, actively managed CRP benefits pheasants and more

Smoke plumes on the horizon is evidence that its peak season for annual prescribed fire across Iowa.

Prescribed fire is the most cost-effective way to manage land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), providing ecological benefits to native plantings which in turn, benefit wildlife, and in particular, pheasants.

“Managing CRP is important in order to maintain quality habitat for pheasants, namely the brood rearing and nesting cover it provides,” said Todd Bogenschutz, upland wildlife biologist for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

How will Iowa turkey hunters follow up a record harvest from 2024?

A mild winter followed by timely spring rains has Iowa forests and woodlots leafing out ahead of spring turkey season, possibly tipping the playing field in favor of the gobblers, after a record harvest of more than 16,000 birds in 2024.
The first of Iowa’s four regular spring turkey seasons opens on April 14.

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