Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Great opening wknd in MO

We've had a great deer season starting last week of October when we both got decent mature bow kill bucks. But this past opening weekend of rifle season was much more than icing on the cake. We hunted our home place on opening morning based on what we'd seen on trail cams around here, but didn't see much and there wasn't much happening around here,

So we went to our cabin on our farm for the rest of the weekend, and the action immediately started picking up.

Left the cabin for the hunting house about 2:30, and noted movement through the woods in the field in front of the house before I was even able to get in. I'm behind a hedge row from 3 does about 120 yds away. I'm watching them as I'm edging over to the house when a nice white antlered buck comes out into the field with the does. I drop to a knee and try to get on him, but I'm not happy with the setup and decided not to take the shot. He eventually works his way in to the opposite side woods and the does eventually follow him. I get up in the stand, and immediately note a doe to my left about 250 yds away feeding in some clover. i'm watching her and another doe that came out. After awhile, I look over to my right and there is the white tined buck about 150 yds away, walking up the field edge fence row on my right towards the hunting house. By the time i'm able to get on him he's about 125 yds away but behind a locust tree limb and not at a good angle. He walks into the woods. Nothing I can do but wait and see if he comes back out. Well about 5 minutes max, he comes back out and starts walking back down the fence row away from me. i'm on him, but not gonna take a Texas heart shot. About 20 yards down the fence he stops and a turkey comes walking out of the woods right beside him. He turns towards the woods enough to present a hard quartering away shot, and the 243 win, Nosler BT hit him in the next to last right side rib, did not exit. As he jumped into the woods at the shot, about 7-8 more turkeys came running and flying out of the woods right beside him.Reminded me of e a covey of quail getting up. Shot him at 3:28, less than an hour from when I left our cabin. Found him about 30 yards in the woods.






Hope was hunting on the front part of our property and only saw one young buck. That part of the property is on a county road and there were hunters across the road hunting a soybean field.

So next morning she decides to go to our hunting house. She gets a little bit of a late start and gets to the house a few minutes after sunrise. She chases 3 doe out of the field in front of the house as she gets there. Just a few minutes later, three different doe come feeding into the field from the woods close to where my buck had gone in the afternoon before. Shortly after, a nice young 8 pointer comes out, that she wisely decided to pass on. He's mulling about the does for a few minutes when Hope notices a different buck coming out behind a tree in the field. A nice 10 pointer. She has to watch him for awhile as he's chasing and walking and trotting, but he finally stops and gives her a broadside shot at about 140 yds. She hit him tight behind the shoulder with a 120gr Nosler BT from her 7mm-08, and he ran about 30 yds into the woods in front of him. Bullet didn't exit, We found him about 10 yards in. She got to the stand about 6:50, and I'd heard her shoot from the cabin at 7:28.





Now we have two more bucks to take care of - good thing the weather is cooperating for hanging and processing. And good thing we have plenty of extended family that will gladly help us with this years' harvest. We usually only take two deer, and we're less picky on bow kills, so we said we'd only shoot deer with a rifle that we'd mount.Iincredibly for us we did, opening weekend. We are very blessed.






bludog