A novel magnetic core-shell polydopamine-cupric ion complex imprinted polymer was prepared in one-step through surface imprinting technology, which could specifically recognize bovine hemoglobin from the real blood samples. The polymerization conditions and adsorption performance of the resultant nanomaterials were investigated in detail. The results showed that the cupric ion played an important role in the recognition of template proteins. The saturating adsorption capacity of this kind of imprinted polymers was 2.23 times greater than those of imprinted polymers without cupric ion. The imprinting factor of the imprinted materials was as high as 4.23 for the template molecule. The selective separation bovine hemoglobin from the real blood sample is successfully applied. In addition, the prepared materials had excellent stability and no obvious deterioration after five adsorption-regeneration cycles. Easy preparation, rapid separation, high binding capacity and satisfactory selectivity for the template protein make this polymer attractive in the separation of high-abundance proteins.