Missouri Deer Hunting

While the emphasis of this Missouri deer discussion has been on river deer habitat of Missouri's larger river valleys themselves they are not the focus of the best Missouri deer spots.

Missouri deer hunts are based on specific location criteria.

Large rivers such as the Mississippi and Missouri created wide flat valleys of rich soil well suited for large equipment farming operations. Such equipment is able to till 40 acres an hour and valley floor farmers frequently have single fields in excess of 400 acres. Any field separation is far more likely by a well groomed cannel and levee than a wooded creek drainage.

Missouri's better habitat and deer leases are on that part of the watershed where there are mostly creek bottoms that may have dry or intermittent streams. These are the smaller braches that reach up into the timbered ridges away from, but near enough for feeding on the crop fields. These creeks often have irregular banks that allows for varying size wood patches at creek junctions and steeper inclines.

This deer habitat is the right combination of smaller farm crop fields, wooded creek bottoms cutting through the crop fields and near by larger wood stands allowing for the right mixture of food and cover in a relatively small area. This one aspect of knowing the right type of habitat and what region of Missouri has it that makes for trophy whitetail is the value we bring to the self guided hunter. We have done the research to include boots on the ground scouting. The hunter avoids all that and simply jump starts his hunt by more hunt time than looking for a place to hunt.

Trophy Future

We are not trying to over sell Missouri deer hunting to anyone as Missouri trophy whitetail will speak for themselves to any hunter.

It is, that Missouri is a good whitetail state and with the inclusion of unlimited doe tags and a four point one side rack restriction there will be more magazine articles about trophy racks from this state in the short few years ahead.

Missouri point restriction zone requiring 4 points one side for legal harvest.

Missouri deer map

These two facets alone from the very proactive state conservation department give those already acquainted with our Missouri land an advantage. The new to this state hunter will play catch up and the more dedicated whitetail hunter that scouts will show himself through his harvests.

One note forgone from other assessments of the point restriction zone has been its boundary to the east stops at the Upper Mississippi/Grand River Watershed break. So do our deer leases. Our leases stop within the Grand River Watershed simply because we have the long running experience to know where to get the most return for our money.

Second Order Effects

Those deer hunters interested at Missouri whitetail with us will do well to contact us early in the year.

With Missouri being a hunter friendly over the counter tag state, their point restriction zone centered between Kansas City, St Louis and Des Moines that have large population of moneyed hunters without land access makes this portion of northern Missouri highly competitive on deer leases.

What has happened is that non-paying hunter access to private land has become more restricted, the number of individual leases have noticeably increased and the effect has been fewer hunters hunting outside of the limited public lands access and those that are hunting private land are far selective of the racked bucks they choose to harvest. This has further developed the deer herd.

The point restriction zone has been in effect long enough that those with experience within are passing on all but the biggest 8 pointers. The number of 10 and 12 point racks seen is enough for most to hold off on waiting for the higher quality racks.

The end result, less open access land, increased lease costs, increasing quality of racks and fewer hunters with those that do hunt are passing on most of the small racked bucks.

Nothing's Perfect

Having said all this in promotion of Missouri deer we now have a disclaimer specific to Missouri's geography.

The good deer locations written previously are for the northern half of Missouri and the southwest center region. Why these areas? This is where the grain crop farm ground is.

Missouri Agriculture

Better whitetail deer in the better Missouri row crop region of corn, soybean and milo.

The south central part of Missouri suffers from the Ozark Mountain Range that makes for hills and plenty of trees, but degrades the farming to mostly cattle pasture. The whitetail difference is that this hill region is well known locally for the spindly racks common to large wood low food quality areas.

MAHA Missouri Deer Lease Land

Where we have our leases. Much overlap with the two previous maps. Review a larger Missouri deer lease map.

Missouri Deer Habitat & Aerials

Taking these many small steps with pictures and text covering the better whitetail region is one means by which we seek to take away some of the mystery about the hunts we offer.

However, we fully recognize there is no substitute for boots on the ground time and every do it yourself deer hunter must pay that price on his own. We will get the hunter to where he parks his truck. After that, the self guided hunter must make his own hunt and when it comes to deer hunting we strongly encourage scouting either pre season or right at the front of any hunt and sometimes both for the first year member. In every case of every first year member that first season is as much or more for setting that hunter up for years of hunts to come as it is to have a good hunt.

An aerial right next to the Missouri River showing how extensive first what Missouri's 55% agriculture land use looks like and how long running the wooded creek bottoms are. In this case the wooded creek bottoms are on intermittent as well as year round water running creeks.

Farther north well within the Grand River watershed the terrain begins to become more rolling and while retaining the extensive row crop land use the hills begin to add recurring small wood patches as seen in this aerial. The greater number of ponds in this second aerial is a sure indicator of more hilly terrain capable of water retention.

Keys

What many agree with about trophy whitetail is that the deer's first requirement is for food and then the deer make use of whatever available cover there may be. The food keeps the whitetails anchored year round to a specific locality with the rut just expanding that locality.

That deer cover can be the suburban areas much ballyhooed by article writers or the brushed in snaggly creek bottoms that dissect crop fields in the more widely known trophy whitetail areas.

In any case the benefits from a lot of wildlife cover habitat combined with grain row crop farm ground make for the Missouri deer hunt that we enjoy. Oh, by the way, the additional benefit of low to no snow fall winters certainly helps to allow for healthier, larger bodied year round whitetail deer.

Missouri Youth Deer Hunt

Ground blind setup on the point of a small wood patch.

One of several scrapes at the tree line point.

The one passed on early.

The one he took late. Dad told us how he was sick to see how the pictures came out.

Advance to our detailed Missouri deer hunting section