Ok I can’t remember the last time the weather and moon cycle were in as good as a position for opening weekend than this coming weekend here in Missouri. Temps will be crisp and clear and winds more than reasonable from what I have gather as of today. Good luck to all my Show Me State brothers, and may that buck of a lifetime present himself for a shot. On the flip side, come evening may the fire be warm and the drink to your satisfaction!

Same to you Jim!
I'll be hunting public land around Truman lake. It's a lot of fun if you like the color orange!

For the first time in 8 years I wont be there on opening morning. My son has surgery on the following Monday, so I wont be able to head up until Tuesday.

Sambo, I will also be hunting public land on Truman. Have for years. Deer ain't great, but it sure is fun.

I'm pretty excited. I'll be hunting public land in Morgan county, Lamine River Conservation Area. This will be my 5th year there. It gets a good amount of pressure, but I've somehow managed to get 4 bucks there the last 4 years.

I'll be up there with several other guys. One of whom has a wall tent with wood burning stove. Get a buck or not, it's always a fun time.

We are heading there Thursday to set up camp and do some scouting.

I am fired up too, the weather forecast looks GREAT. I'll be hunting up to 7 days over the whole season, on our private land near Deer Ridge CA in NE MO. Will then be thinning out does on my buddy's ranch out near Owensville in December, and ML hunting there after Christmas for a big buck if I don't bag one at my place during rifle. Sure love the many days of hunting available to us. And I'm looking forward to being on relatively flat land after the arduous and challenging CO elk hunt I had out there in first season last month, in killer steep terrain at elevations over 10k!

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Up here in NW Missouri, our numbers are still very low. We went thru the blue tongue thing a 2 or 3 years ago and now predators are reeking havoc with newborns. Used to get lots of pictures, but now very few. In fact, I just pulled camera cards after 10 days and just had 3 does, a yearling, a scraggly one horn buck, and a spike out of 7 cameras on 400+ acres. Pretty bleak, but I'll be there anyway come Saturday hoping I can repeat another similar to the one in the picture.
Good luck and safe hunting,
Phil

That's a heckuva buck Phil!

I could be happy shooting does the rest of my days if I tagged something like that

We are seeing a tremendous amount of activity at the moment in Central MO. The best buck we had on camera was killed by my son's friend with a bow about a month ago. It was a Mid 150's 2.5 yr old 10 pt. We have several smaller/younger bucks, but now that the rut is kicking in, there is no telling what might show up. Going to be good either way, getting a deer is just gravy.

Good luck to all.

I was present when river otters were released at the Lamine River bridge some 35 years ago. Would greatly appreciate seeing some pictures of your camp, and the river if you could post them

I myself will be hunting in Owensville MO just before Bland. This will be the first time in many years that one of my sons is not hunting with me. Middle boy is now in Kansas and the other two are up in Columbia attending school. Neither one of the two can make it down this weekend due to school commitments.

I lost my son who was my main deer hunter because he moved to Virginia. Also, my oldest granddaughter who has fired 9 shots at deer and has 9 deer to her credit. Its not going to be the same.
Phil

Good luck to everyone, Missouri has some beautiful deer ground to hunt.

Go get em Jim. Good luck!

i'll be on our farm in southern callaway county with my lovely wife, maybe my pop, and hoping my main pard HUGH. got the whole season off, and have been seeing some great bucks on the cameras.

have a safe and enjoyable hunt fellas.

I hunt public ground in the deep Ozark's. My son and I have a couple good ones located while bowhunting. We'll see what happens. Weather's gonna get cold, bucks are chasing does pretty good right now.

Jim,

I'll be down in Cooper Hill can't be far from your spot. Thinking rut is in early stages, love watching them bucks running does. Even if you don't see Mr Big, watching them is always fun. Good Luck to all.

KC

Our crew will be hunting private ground in Vernon county.
First year we have had access to this place.
So far no trail camera pics of anything to get real excited about and we've had cameras on one of the places since last April.
Fella that farms the place has seen four different bucks on the place that he says are heart stoppers though.

Good luck to all.

Yea you will be just a little North/Northwest of me. I don’t need Mr Big but I will happily oblige him should he present himself. I hunt for table fare first, home apparel second.
Cheers to all.

Well, I'll be going out to Missouri for, hopefully, a little deer hunting and maybe some duck hunting next week. Both of my boys live out there now with their families and I am going for a visit. They are located in, I think, Randolph County, around Huntsville. I've only been out there once before, and that time all we hunted were rabbits, but we sure got a pile of them. I'd sure like to come across some of those fox squirrels as well, the ones they tell me are as big as house cats. No matter what, I'll have fun with my boys and the grandkids.

In Missouri, if you have rabbits, you have deer and everything else. That’s good country side out there. I have to think there is at least one or two wayward deer roaming about.
Btw, hello to you too Diamond Jim. Hope you get out and have a nice hunt.

Be hunting some new ground this year and looking forward to it as it's my own. Last spring bought 55 acres between Sedalia and Boonville. Be myself, Dad, brother and 2 nephews. Youngest brother will be hunting his new 20 acres over by Rocheport. He's had does coming down through by the woods just below the house. He said he'd step off the patio before he shoots.

spent about 17years hunting that area. great deer hunting and the best duck and goose hunting in the state is 30 miles away. enjoy your visit

On the way up for the opener now. My buddy says we have 1-2" of snow on the ground at our farm in Caldwell county.

that should be true. got 3/4" in western st charles county and still snowing lightly. good luck

I'm probably the only Missouri resident that leaves the state on opening weekend. It is Kansas opening weekend of pheasant/quail season. I'd much rather shoot a rooster than any deer.

Have had some big bucks in the yard over the last month. Wife might shoot at one if they happen to be out in her comings and goings.

I get to work in Utah next week, so if I even bother loading a rifle it will be for next weekend.

Deer were sure moving last night when I came home from work, the cold front hit, and saw multiple groups out feeding about 4pm, which is rare for that particular drive I make.

#1 on my list for this season.

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Had this one around me for 7 hours on opening g day last year. Looks to be a little wider but still has that 3x4 frame. See what he looks like in person if he shows up. Still looks a bit young to me w flat back and belly not sagging .

This one should be good in a couple years.

Isn't that cuz you'se be a transplant.

My uncle who grew up in KS but now lives in Lee's Summit does the same thing.

Camping now in Shannon county. I hung a stand yesterday in a promising spot. Gonna be brisk. Bundle up!

Should be good in Macon County this year with the cold temps and the bucks doing some chasing.

Snow is about gone and it is going to be cold overnight. 15 degrees here. Wish I was tent camping.Good luck everyone

Everybody be careful in their travels this morning. I am headed to our place in Benton County hopefully one of the bucks we have been getting on camera shows up today.

Good luck to all who are headed out.

We that answers my question in your buck thread on where you hunt. Myself I took a doe yesterday, had 9 come by me throughout the day. Had one young buck cruise by at first light, that was the only buck I saw. Great opening weekend in my opinion.

I hunted Ray country. Great opening weekend. Passed up 4 or 5 small bucks both days including a 140 class 10 pointer most people would have tagged, but I know there is a bigger one out there. Really hoping that nice 10 pt buck would find it's way in front of my daughter, but it didn't. We will give it a go again later in the week.

The water is low this year, mogwai. The snow was a bit of a surprise.

shot an 11 point on Saturday afternoon. wife has passed on several small bucks. headed back thursday

If things work out right on fri, I should be in the stand around 3 at the latest. This will be in southern Festus which is about a 30 min drive from my house. Will be my last rifle season hunt. I am hoping to get out in the alternative weapon hunt later on and back out at some point with my crossbow over Christmas break if I can make it happen.

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.