Good luck Missouri hunters

[45seventy]

Just want to wish good luck to the Missouri guys.
Opening day tomorrow. I'll be hunting vicariously
through you guys this season. Lost my hunting spot
this year. Get a nice one for me! Good luck all.

[Sidekick]

I'll be out there in the morning. Been spending half the day getting ready for the three hunters spending the weekend here. And I've got a cousin down the road who will be out along with my mother who never misses opening weekend. Sounds like it will be a fairly nice day but a little warmer than I'd like to see it. We've been getting the younger folks involved in the hunt more and more every year and that's a good thing.

[45seventy]

Always good to get mom involved...:)
Sounds like you have a good crew...
Good luck!

[howdydoit]

ill keep my fingers crossed for me, hope All MO hunters see the deer of there dreams.

howdy

[MOGC]

Yep, myself and my crew of my wife, son, and dad are all going to be out at grey dawn on stands. I really dislike the forecast this year, warm and rainy, but it is what it is and we're lucky to have the opportunity. Be safe, have fun, and appreciate what the good Lord puts in front of you this year! ;)

[45seventy]

Amen!!!

[Sidekick]

Yesterday was a little warmer than I would have liked but it wasn't too bad. Today was awful. It was just starting to mist a little when we got out of the truck and by 6:30 it was raining. And as of now it still is. We stuck it out till 9am but the kids were getting sick of it and to be honest I was too so we spent the rest of the day at the house. Saw ten deer today early at daybreak but it was dead after that. It's supposed to be this way till Wednesday. My clothes are still soaked. Even my gore-tex didn't quite cut it. Hopefully it's better tomorrow.

[45seventy]

Yeah...I feel your pain...I broke down and went on some public ground this morning...jeez..hunters kept walking up on me...and sitting down across hillsides from me in plain view. LOL one guy walked down the hill and sat about 30yds from me. I got up, walked over and asked if he had any coffee. I don't think he understood my meaning. He just looked blankly and said 'no'. It started to rain so I packed up and left too. I'll be heading to Il next weekend. Hope I have better luck there.

[Altjaeger]

Good luck to you both!

[ncboman]

one guy walked down the hill and sat about 30yds from me. I got up, walked over and asked if he had any coffee. I don't think he understood my meaning. He just looked blankly and said 'no'.

:D

[Sidekick]

Some people are completely oblivious to everything and everybody except for their own wants and needs and they will NEVER see it any other way. I'm lucky to own my own ground and hunt on the family farm too. I don't have to put up with much of that kind of stuff. Sometimes our weekend hunters can get to be a little much and there is the occasional jackass that can't read the signs but it's mostly all good.

Oh and I killed a doe at daybreak this morning. I probably wasn't gone from the house for more than 20 minutes. :D I shot her twice but after I field dressed her I saw that there was no need. The heart was shot in half and there were chunks of lung hanging out of her side. The second shot was a running raking shot and I busted up the shoulder on one side pretty good. Oh well I've got the backstraps sitting in ice water in the fridge so I'll be fat and happy come suppertime!

[Bushman]

Meat in the pot, Sidekick. Good going. I hunt public land too, but not like most people. I've had enough of that easy access, run the gauntlet kind of deer hunting early on. Those deer need to come from somewhere and with a guy every couple hundred yards, it is no wonder that the life expectancy of a buck on the public ground in most places would be 18 months. Now they tell me that it is even less than that for any deer. Zero deer sightings on public land seems to be the norm.

[Sabre]

Meat in the pot, Sidekick. Good going. I hunt public land too, but not like most people. I've had enough of that easy access, run the gauntlet kind of deer hunting early on. Those deer need to come from somewhere and with a guy every couple hundred yards, it is no wonder that the life expectancy of a buck on the public ground in most places would be 18 months.

It would be a rare treat to be able to get 200 yards from another hunter on private farmland around here. State land is your best bet for finding solitude, provided you're willing to get back 1/2 mile or more from motorized access.

[Sidekick]

Wow. It's day three of the season and I haven't seen another hunter yet. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of people out and you hear shots all the time but this is wide open farmland and there just isn't room for that kind of hunting pressure. I can hunt 2500 acres. That sounds like a lot and it is but what a lot of people don't realize is that it's farmland. That means pulling into the drive of a 300 acre field that has one very narrow fencerow on one side and maybe a ten acre draw that runs down the middle somewhere is the only cover on the whole place. And you can't stick too many people in that. But there is probably a patch of cover like that every quarter mile. And with most farms being hunted there is usually a couple of deer on the move all the time. It's pretty good hunting really.

[45seventy]

Congrats on the deer Sidekick. The place I went to was an 1800 acre conservation area north of Sullivan. Not very big at all. I counted 12 trucks out there at various parking places, so a conservative estimate would be 20 other hunters. Gets kinda scary when you see 2 other hunters 70yds away watching the same finger of land running down a hillside directly across from you. If a deer ran down that finger, I knew for a fact that they would be popping away at that sucker all the way down. :eek:

[MOGC]

...State land is your best bet for finding solitude, provided you're willing to get back 1/2 mile or more from motorized access.

Absolutely correct! There are millions of acres in the Ozarks that are public hunting thanks to our Missouri Department of Conservation, the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Army Corp of Engineers. You just have to leg it back in the rough stuff away from a road. A compass and topo map are your best friend...

[Sidekick]

Got out in the stand early this morning and had what I think was a big buck walk past me but it was still so dark I couldn't make out any antlers in the scope. I could have easily killed it but I'm looking for a particular deer right now. Other than that it was quiet. Except for the turkeys. They stayed down in the bottom where I was all morning scratching and squabbling. Good entertainment. Beats sitting in the house or going to work.

[MOGC]

I'm not doing any good, seeing nothing but does.

[howdydoit]

I'm not doing any good, seeing nothing but does.

LOL

better then me, Ive seen one little, and i mean tiny doe, and my grandfathers horse.

Hes a big fat horse that doesnt get riden, prolly should have shot him. Lot of meat sitting there. lol ;)

[dave-t.]

MOGC, I'll trade ya, I've been seeing nothing but small bucks.

[Bushman]

Sidekick, you just described the scenario perfectly that had me switching from a 2.5-8x36 Leupold Vari-X III to a Zeiss 1.5-6x42 VM/V. Seeing is believing and I've seen the light.

[Sidekick]

I'm using a VX-2 3-9x40 on my .270 now. I thought it was pretty good. Better than my old Simmons and Bushnells anyway. It get's better?

[MOGC]

MOGC, I'll trade ya, I've been seeing nothing but small bucks.

I'm working my rear off this year. I have my 77 year old dad that I'm trying to get on a deer. That isn't easy, dad doesn't hear anything and has lost a lot of vision from several eye troubles he has. My wife is hunting this year and I'm trying to get the first deer ever for her. We have set a self imposed limitation of 60 yards, the deer broadside, and her sitting and rested for her to shoot. I actually called a doe within 40 yards of her Saturday and she wouldn't shoot because she said she wasn't comfortable with the shot. I respect that as a good mature decision, but it is frustrating as I thought it was a chip shot. AND my adult son is hunting again after college and career took him out of the game for years. This is the first time in about ten years he has hunted and I really want him to get jazzed up for it this year. I don't even know why I'm carrying a rifle around this year...

[dave-t.]

Good luck, when the rain stops, the deer should be running wild everywhere.

For those not in the area, it's been raining/drizzling since Sunday morning before light with temps of 35-45 locally. Miserable.