Hey everybody, I recently gained permission to hunt a large parcel of land in southern missouri. It is a working cattle farm that is about 60/40 pasture to timber, to my knowledge it has not been hunted on in a couple of years. There is a lot of deer sign as well as turkey sign that I saw in the little bit of time that I had on it a couple of days ago while visiting a family friend who is the owner of the land. The next time I see the property is when I drive up in the middle of December after I graduate from college. I have never hunted in Missouri and was hoping to get a few pointers as to what I should do as a plan of attack since I will only have about 8 days to hunt, so prep/scout and hunting is pretty limited. I was planning on talking to the owner to find out where he has been seeing the most deer movement, there is a creek that runs through the property and thought about possibly focusing on that area as my main focus seeing as it should be a pinch point and subsequent travel route for some deer in the area. Any tips or pointers are greatly appreciated, I have never had any luck in late season hunting so I am open to all pointers and tips from everybody. I know food is the name of the game in the late season but after that I am pretty much tapped out lol. Thanks in advance for any help, Josh.
Yeah you're right with the food source in the late season. Also try to find a hillside that blocks the wind or a really thick piece of timber. Deer will try to stay out of the wind as much as possible trying to conserve their energy. Good luck in the late season.
Since that is a working cattle farm in southern Missouri there probably aren't many agriculture type crops around. That means the food source will most likely be acorns in the timbered areas. It is looking like we will have a bumper crop of acorns this year. That means deer can feed about anywhere in the timber since Missouri forest is predominately oak/hickory hardwoods with a smattering of pines. I think I might follow that creek through some timbered flats with good acorn producing oaks and look for funnel areas between thicker bedding cover like old clear cuts and hot feeding areas. Watch the topography for easy travel routes keeping the wind direction in mind.
That's after the main rifle season here and the deer kind of burrow in for a while after,so you are going to need to find thick cover mixed with food,that's close the deer bedding area so they won't travel to far from bedding during this time,corn is the key to late season and hope for cold weather but it rarely snows before Xmas here and it can be mild temps even then. Good luck and welcome home to MO.
Yeah it really is, a beautiful difference from the South Louisiana swamps that I usually hunt in here down here
Well since you cant really do any scouting its gonna be a little hard. But MRI from the land owner will probably play a big part in your hunt, also look for good worn out creek crossings. Being that it will be december when u get there hopfully there will be some snow on the ground and you will be able to see some good trails in the snow. Just make sure you work the edges when scouting and not go in the cover and bust them out before you even get a chance to hunt them.
I'll have about 7 days to hunt and I planned on spending the first couple of days putting up some trail cameras and hunting out of my climber and ground blind over some hay fields and unused pastures till I get a better lay of the land. Most of the timber on the property is set up in draws and funnels along the pastures feeding out of the neighboring properties. There's also a couple of farm ponds on the property that I thought about hunting over given the right winds.
Just start on the outsides observing then work your way in when you get a good area spoted, as far as hunting over ponds Here in Michigan ponds are froze in December and water source isnt really key. I would Work the edges get a good idea where the deer are moving then move in.
Hey Everybody, I got some maps of the property I'll be hunting on in a couple of weeks. I was hoping y'all could maybe give me a few pointers as to where to possibly start out. I have a few ideas but am always open to new ones, the first map is an overall view with the second and the third focusing on the front and back sections of the ranch respectively
