Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Upcoming Missouri Opener

Last Friday night, I got out of my truck in Macon and hit some ice. Fell on my already damaged left shoulder (Ouch!), so I decided to sit out the season and just do some visiting (I have a lot of family in the area just west of there). My nephew's 8 yo son shot a nice little buck on Saturday evening, which was plenty good enough to make ME happy (he's a great little kid). I did do some looking around and saw some nice bucks (and several does), but obviously didn't shoot anything. I was having a great time visiting family anyway.

'Smacker, bummer to hear about the tumble and resulting no hunting. But glad you got to spend some good time with the family.

My family had a good opening day. My youngest brother shot a good sized 9-point on his new property. My oldest nephew got a medium 9 and a medium 10 for me on my new place.

Glen I hope you heal up fast. Don’t know about you or the rest of the fire but I have found that my ability to bounce has greatly diminished as I pushed through my 50’s and into 60.

I just got back from hunting in Montgomery county. It was 11 degrees in my little pop-up blind Saturday morning. I shot a really nice buck on Saturday afternoon. Made a bad hit (a little low) and he crawled through the fence. I waited 10 minutes and walked down to find him (300+ yards of soybean field away). I heard a truck and by the time I got to the tree line, another hunter - if he can call himself that- loaded my buck up and drove away. I didn't realize that the treeline was the edge of the property. No shame in MO I guess. I killed a smaller buck and came home. I-40 was nasty across TX and I watched several vehicle crash into the median and shoulder.

This was my first WT hunt and it was an eye opener to how it all goes on. I am going to do it again in a couple of years- armed with the knowledge I gained from this outing.

What a bummer. Some folks have no shame.

All whitetail hunting is not like that. And all Missouri hunters are not like that. No fences or property lines where I hunt and not many hunters. But you have to work harder, sometimes a lot harder.

Our season has been a little spotty, but there are plenty of deer in NW Mo. I shot a nice one Saturday evening, 20 inside with 11 in tines, probably the longest running shot I've ever made 368 yards lasered running broadside with my old Ruger 7x57. I'l get my grandson out tomorrow and see if we can scrounge up another nice one for him.

Since I wasn't hunting, but kinda wanted to see what was going on, I rode the roads a little, and saw a fair number of deer opening morning, including a couple of nice shooter bucks. Saw lots of does, too. I didn't even get off the roads and saw a lot of deer.

What did sorta surprise me was two bucks running together still, one was a modest six, but there was a much nicer buck running with him, and the way THAT buck was acting, there was a bigger one behind them. He was looking over his shoulder a lot. We were about 300 yards off, but I had the glasses up, and watched them quite awhile. Either would have been easy shootin'.

Then, there was the nice ten walking down the road towards us, until he noticed us watching him, then he eased off into the woods.

The neatest one was the 8 point which crossed the road about 250 yards from my cousin's house, and ambled off to the east and down into the timber. The sun was shining on him and made him look like a pumpkin, he was so orange.That would have been easy-peasy, and easy to get to.

where in montgomery county? im just across the line in callaway county

wife killed a 145 3/8" 9 point saturday morning. so much for no taxidermy bill this year

I've got a friend that lives in Rolla and I was texting him earlier today to see if he had gotten a deer yet. He told me no, that he must me a terrible shot. I asked him if he had been to the range prior to the season to make sure him and the rifle (Ruger 77 MKII 7mm Rem Mag) were still good. He replied "Easier said than done". I texted him back if he hasn't been to the range recently, then he had no business hunting. I got to thinking, I bet that gun was last sighted in in 2002 or 2003, when he was complaining about not being able to hit anything with it. I took it to the range for him and checked the scope, it wasn't even on the paper. I got it dialed in, but I bet he has not target practiced with it since then. That gun has made 4 military moves as well in that time, so no telling how bad off that scope is. He's a good friend, but some people need to either get serious about it and make sure they practice their shooting, or give up hunting.

Middletown

Thank you sir! Looking good.