smha6784 Posted January 14, 2015 Report Share Posted January 14, 2015 Any of you guys hunt public land in Missouri? Im really thinking hard about heading that way next year for bow hunt. Any info would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhino Posted January 14, 2015 Report Share Posted January 14, 2015 Never deer hunted public land in MO...just private. Turkey hunted the Mark Twain National forest once. Check their web site for public land options. Best time to bowhunt there is probably the last few days of October through about the 10th of November. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhino Posted January 15, 2015 Report Share Posted January 15, 2015 Here's a few more things to check out while you're doing your research to decide where you might like to go. 1st - an up to date map showing deer harvest. It's updated daily through telecheck. This may help in your decision making process. Total season harvest should be available soon. http://mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping/hunting-outlooks-and-reports/deer-reports/deer-harvest-map 2nd - go to this link & go about 1/3 the way down...on the right side you will see you can check out the availability of public hunting areas by county. Then just click on the areas you want to check out for their specific regs & maps of each. Hunting permit info is on that page too. http://mdc.mo.gov/hunting-trapping 3rd - avoid hunting within the CWD containment area. Why? Antler restrictions were removed there IMO to kill as many deer as possible. The CWD containment area is a 6 county area in north/central MO that consist of these counties...Sullivan, Adair, Linn, Macon, Charlton, & Randolph. BTW...know the MO hunting regs before you go. There are some differences between them in MS. Just to mention a few...telechecking your deer before 10:00 p.m. the day of your harvest, many counties have antler restrictions on bucks (4 points on one side), and the timing your archery buck tags can be filled (only 1 out of your 2 buck tags before the gun season opens). There are also additional changes being considered for this coming year so make sure you check them out. Somewhere around mid to late July their web site will have the 2015 fall deer hunting regulations manual available for download. Lastly...with your deer archery tags/license you also get 2 archery turkey tags. Bonus game if you have the opportunity. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smha6784 Posted January 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2015 im wondering if leaseing a small track like 100 acres might be a better idea. thru someone like base camp or something. do you know anyone in your area looking to lease hunting rights. or are you fimiliar with basecamp? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoytshooter09 Posted January 16, 2015 Report Share Posted January 16, 2015 I have hunted settles ford conservation area about 6,500 acres of archery only the hunting can be good but a lot of it is marsh and there is a decent amount of hunters there. Also have hunted amarugias about 1,600 acres this place gets a lot of pressure during rifle season but can be great for pre rifle bow hunts. One of the best places I know of is public land around the Truman lake area a lot of land there and its spread out again though rifle season a lot of hunters there so any thing before rifle season a good chance for some nice hunts. I have looked on base camp and other sited for leases around the kc area not to many that are not a ton of land that is mainly beanfield. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoytshooter09 Posted January 16, 2015 Report Share Posted January 16, 2015 I went to amarugia a couple days ago squirrel hunting and had 7 does go by me and then had three bucks run across a crp field and right by me one was a good 140 10 point and a decent 8 too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhino Posted January 16, 2015 Report Share Posted January 16, 2015 im wondering if leaseing a small track like 100 acres might be a better idea. thru someone like base camp or something. do you know anyone in your area looking to lease hunting rights. or are you fimiliar with basecamp? I'm not familiar with basecamp at all. Never knew it existed till now. I'm not aware of anyone in the general area where I hunt that's looking to lease land for hunting. There's some leased property near us but it's been leased to the same guys for over 20 years. A buddy system deal & it's probably close to 1,000 ac. Like youtshooter09 said...virtually all public land gets a lot of hunting pressure during the gun season. Most private land does too! Most areas get a whole lot less pressure during bow season. Heck...I know many locals don't even consider deer season as being open until gun season. Weird huh! Their gun season only last 11 days too, excluding their late alternative weapons season that doesn't open until a week or so before Christmas. Hard to comprehend the vast majority of deer hunters in MO don't bow hunt at all. JMHO but the best deer hunting is before the gun season opens too. One of the things the MO Dept of Conservation was considering this past summer was opening their gun season a week later than they have been. Public meetings were held to discuss that along with other possible changes they are considering for the future. Some of these changes being considered could go into effect this year. The only change they made last year was limiting gun season hunters to just 1 gun season antlerless tag. Anterless tags for archery seasons weren't limited last year except by your wallet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigMike.jmp Posted February 8, 2016 Report Share Posted February 8, 2016 Sorry if this response is over a year behind, but I figured I would jump on this topic, because I mostly hunt public land, here in Missouri. Bow season on Missouri public land is challenging due to the fact that you may not alway be able to just stroll right in and get into the spot that you had scouted before, so always have a back-up area. Any GPS maps or area maps that you can use from the Department of Conservation is a big help. if you have a smart phone with you when you go out scout, I suggest using an app like HuntStand Lite for Andriods, that way you can mark any potential areas you found of interest. Public land for bow hunting is good, because many times you will be the only person on the land. Early bow season in Missouri is best on public land, due to the fact that after firearm season, most deer have moved away from the public land that all the hunters have been hunting, and are mostly only moving during the late evening/ night hours, usually leading to last season being not as productive, with very little sightings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
417Archer Posted March 24, 2016 Report Share Posted March 24, 2016 Hey, BigMike! Sent you a message Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.