The first shotgun deer season opens this weekend on the heels of what has been a successful bow season. Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife research technician, Jim Coffey, says hunters have already reported taking more than 27-thousand deer. “We’ve had an excellent fall with weather conditions and the crops came out early, and the hunters have had some great days to be out there. So, I think that has helped increase the number of people in the field and also increase license sales,” Coffey says. Coffey says he doesn’t expect any drop in hunters taking to the field this season.

He says the license sales for the shotgun season have been right on track to be about the same amount as last year. With license sales doing well, he expects the harvest numbers to be right around last year too. “Reported harvest last year was right at about 100-thousand deer and that’s what we would expect this year — unless there’s some major phenomenon in the weather — we should track pretty similarly,” according to Coffey. The weather is expected to warm up this weekend and Coffey says the weather conditions can really dictate the success of the hunt.

“Weather impacts the hunters as much or more than it does the deer. And sometimes warmer weather is just a little more difficult because the deer can spread themselves out,” Coffey explains. “It’ll be an interesting weekend, it will be a little muddy in some places. It should be nice weather, but that can actually make it more difficult to deer hunt.” The D-N-R surveys the deer population to try and keep it under control. Coffey though doesn’t talk about deer numbers in specific areas.

“Populations are something that are very difficult to talk about across the entire state because there is so much difference in the habitat from north to south and east and west. So we talk about trends more than anything,” Coffey says. He says if you saw deer last year in the places you normally hunt, there should be plenty of deer in those areas again this year.

This first shotgun deer season begins Saturday and runs through next Wednesday. The second shotgun season is December 12th through the 20th. The archery season closes Saturday to allow for the shotgun season and will re-open on December 21st. The late muzzleloader season opens at the same time and both will run through January 10th.

(Radio Iowa)

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast w/Chris Parks.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.2MB)

Subscribe: RSS

Double Dual at Audubon

The Atlantic/CAM wrestling team opened up their season with two dual victories in Audubon.  The Trojans beat the Wheelers 48-21 and Griswold 66-18. Audubon won four of 7 matches in the dual with Atlantic but open weights gave the Trojans the win.  Atlantic won four out of five contests against Griswold.  Audubon took down Griswold 36-24 by winning 3 of 4 contested matches.  Two Audubon wrestlers won twice on the night: Jacob Soll (152) and Dustin Andreasen (160).

• Atlantic 48, Audubon 21
• Atlantic 66, Griswold 18
• Audubon 36, Griswold 24

Double Dual at Bedford

• Central Decatur 40, Wayne 21
• Bedford/Lenox 48, Central Decatur 30
• Bedford/Lenox 52, Wayne 23

Quad at Clarke

• Southwest Valley 46, East Mills 36
• East Mills 36, Mount Ayr 33
• Clarke 36, East Mills 34
• Mount Ayr 41, Southwest Valley 37
• Southwest Valley 42, Clarke 39
• Mount Ayr 37, Clarke 36

Double Dual at Glenwood

• Kuemper Catholic 66, St. Albert 6
• Glenwood 83, St. Albert 0
• Glenwood 63, Kuemper Catholic 14

Double Dual at Lewis Central

• Clarinda 48, Shenandoah 24
• Lewis Central 63, Shenandoah 9
• Lewis Central 54, Clarinda 20

Quad at Logan-Magnolia

• AHSTW 75, Exira-EHK 12
• AHSTW 66, Woodbine 18
• Logan-Magnolia 54, AHSTW 16
• Logan-Magnolia 78, Exira-EHK 6
• Woodbine 42, Exira-EHK 40
• Logan-Magnolia 75, Woodbine 6

Double Dual at Nodaway Valley

• Guthrie Center 36, West Central Valley 30
• Guthrie Center 42, Nodaway Valley 39
• West Central Valley 33, Nodaway Valley 18

Double Dual at Red Oak

• Missouri Valley 54, Denison-Schleswig 11
• Red Oak 42, Denison-Schleswig 34
• Missouri Valley 51, Red Oak 28

Double Dual at Riverside

• Underwood 69, Southwest Iowa 12
• Riverside 72, Southwest Iowa 9
• Riverside 38, Underwood 36

Quad at Thomas Jefferson

• Sioux City North 54, Abraham Lincoln 21
• Sioux City West 42, Abraham Lincoln 38
• Thomas Jefferson 67, Sioux City West 12
• Thomas Jefferson 39, Sioux City North 33

The success of the Iowa football team has even the most casual fans sporting Iowa gear, and has the man in charge of licensing for the school keeping an eye out for those trying to take advantage of the desire to wear the black and gold. Hawkeye Sports Licensing director Dale Arens says, the companies all have to get approval to legally produce the items with the U-I logo. “We take applications in a variety of different product categories. Any application requires a marketing plan…there’s a couple of different things we look at in each case, and do they have a chance for success,” Arens says.

He says the products have to be new or do something different with a current product to get approval. Iowa completed an undefeated regular season at 12-0 and play Saturday in the Big Ten Championship game. There’ll be special hats and t-shirts and other items on sale at the event in Indianapolis, and Arens says there are even more requirements for the vendors who produce those products. “Those don’t involve just the University of Iowa’s intellectual properties, but they are going to involve, like this weekend the Big Ten, Michigan State,” Arens says. “So now you are looking at a licensee vendor who has to have a relationship with all three of those parties, or it’s not even worth talking about.” Arens says they will be looking to make sure unapproved items aren’t being sold.

“I will be in Indianapolis working with my colleague from Michigan State, people from the Big Ten and then local law enforcement. So, we do police the marketplace around the stadium prior to the game and in that market,” Arens says. “And throughout the season that’s something we do here at the University of Iowa also.” Arens is confident they will find any knock off products.

“I like to say I am like a good bird dog, I know where the birds are hiding. And so we know if there are going to be infringers, we know where they’ll be and we make sure they don’t hang around any longer than they are welcome — which is not,” according to Arens. He says things haven’t changed a lot when it comes to protecting the copyrights. “While it may seem easier to do that now because of the internet, it’s also easier to find and police them,” Arens says. He says he does have a lot of help when it comes to keeping a watchful eye on the tiger hawk.

“It’s crazy, you’d think that would be a 24-seven job for me, but the University of Iowa has 250-thousand plus alumni out there and every one of them thinks they are a detective when they see this,” Arens says. “They don’t want to see their beloved school stolen from and infringed upon — so they certainly let us know when they see things.” So, does the man who makes sure everything from Hawkeye keychains to socks wear the gear when he heads out?

“Yeah I do, but it’s crazy though because with what I do, everybody thinks that that’s my entire life. And while it is, sometimes I’ll go to my closet and I’ll go ‘ oh good lord I wish I had something that didn’t have a log on it.’ When I go to church I don’t want to go wearing a Hawkeye shirt,” Arens says. Most other times though, he says he’s happy to wear the black and gold.

(Radio Iowa/Learfield Sports)

BOYS BASKETBALL

Bishop Neumann, Neb. 83, St. Albert, Council Bluffs 41
OA-BCIG 61, River Valley, Correctionville 28
Stanton 64, Riverside, Oakland 35
Storm Lake 65, Denison-Schleswig 64, OT
Unity Christian, Orange City 65, West Sioux, Hawarden 51

GIRLS BASKETBALL

Bedford 65, Murray 23
Denison-Schleswig 55, Storm Lake 12
Grand View Christian/ACA 76, Earlham 51
OA-BCIG 40, River Valley, Correctionville 28

The Atlantic/CAM Wrestling team will start their new season tonight in Audubon with a double dual that includes the Audubon Wheelers and Griswold Tigers.

Coach Tim Duff’s squad returns three state qualifiers from last season: Junior Drake Roller 170, Junior Carter Cox 113, and Sophomore Kole Hansen 106.  A number of other wrestlers that fared well in districts last year also return.

Preseason rankings from The Predicament in Class 2A have Kole Hansen ranked 8th at 106lbs and Carter Cox ranked 7th at 113lbs.  Atlantic will have some tough competition as always in the conference as Creston O-M is ranked 2nd and Glenwood is ranked 6th in the state 2A team rankings.

Action in the double dual tonight will get underway at 5:30pm at Audubon High School.

The 7:20-a.m. Sportscast, with Jim Field.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.3MB)

Subscribe: RSS

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Peter Jok scored 24 points, including a 3 with 25 seconds left in overtime, and Iowa rallied to beat Florida State 78-75 on Wednesday night to seal the Big Ten/ACC Challenge for its league. Jarrod Uthoff added 15 with eight rebounds for the Hawkeyes (5-2), which won its third straight at home.

Florida State tied it at 71-all on a Boris Bojanovsky tip-in with 2:02 left. But Jok got free in the corner and drilled a 3 that gave Iowa a 74-72 lead. Malik Beasley scored 20 points for Florida State (4-2), which lost despite grabbing 19 offensive rebounds.