MO "08" Gun Opener- Minny-Mo Buck #3 Down

11/15/08 - The opening morning of the 2008 Missouri firearms season greeted Brian and I with 33 degree temps, sleet, snow, rain, and 25-40 mph winds out of the NW. It was cold to say the least, probably the 2nd worst day of hunting conditions I've ever hunted in! We hunted on a new farm located in Blue Springs, MO. We didn't get permission until early November for the property, so scouting time was very limited. We went in last Tuesday before the rain and hung two ladder stands. One on the North end of the property and one on the South end.

I had 3 does come into the field before shooting light and they fed in the picked beans for 25 minutes before moving off to the northeast. They were followed shortly by 2 big does that fed into the field from the southwest corner. I was so temped to shoot the biggest one, but it was so early and we knew there were a couple good bucks on the property, because of pictures the land owner had on his trail cameras. The wind and snow/sleet kept up most of the morning, but I continued to see several does and yearlings work in and around the field.

Around 10am there was a shot on the neighbors property and at 10:30am I spotted a hunter walking through the bedding area to my south. I yelled at him twice and he turned and looked both times, but continued to walk east through the bedding cover. At 10:45am the trespasser popped out of the east side of the field with a friend (not in orange) and walked directly over to my stand spooking 2 does that had been feeding to my north. He proceed to tell me he had hit a good buck around 10am and that he'd jumped the fence to our side. He said the property owner's brother had given him permission to look and he didn't know anybody was hunting, he apologized about messing up my hunt and headed west with his buddy. I figured this would be a good time to eat lunch and try to warm up.

Brian and I were back in the stands by 12:20pm. Around 1:30pm I spotted the two big does from the morning working down the treeline to my northeast across the field. They were +200yrds out, but headed my direction. Once they worked inside 175yrds I was going to take a shot, when I noticed movement to my left. There was a good buck coming out onto the field. He started to run east across the field and I could see through the binos that his front left leg was broke just above the knee joint an flopping in the wind. The buck spotted the two does and charged another 80yrds across the field towards them. He stopped about a 190yrds. to check out the two does one more time and I touched off the shot. The ol' boy didn't even try to hold a second bullet on the day. He went down in his tracks and I was shook-up. I knew he was a good deer, but I really had no idea how big or how many points he had, it all happened so fast.

I called Brian and he came over and met me in the field. We took some photos and drug ol' boy into the treeline and climbed back up into the stands. The action slowed down for a while, but around 3:45pm I started seeing deer working around the field edges. At 3:58pm a small deer popped out 90yrds north of me in the field. I wanted to shoot an eater deer, but there were several trees and branches preventing a shot. Because of the 30 mph winds I decided I could probably climb down and slide up to the field edge undetected and get a shot. My plan worked to perfection and I was actually able to stalk up to 50yrds before putting to boots to deer #2 on the day. I called Delany to tell him the news and that I was going to go pickup the 4wheeler at his house. While we were on the phone I spotted two deer looking at me from over the top of the field. I set the phone down and let the .06 barked again, deer #3 of the day was now down in it's tracks also. Despite the wicked weather conditions it was an amazing day, with 23 deer and 13 turkeys spotted and three deer down including my 2nd biggest buck.

11/16/08- Day two of the 08 MO firearms season treated us much nicer than day 1 did. It was still cold with temps in the low 30's, but the wind had switched out of the SW and laid down to 7-10mph. My goal for the day was to harvest a mature doe. Around 7am I spotted 3 does and little 6 point about 400yrds to the north. I watched them for about 15 minutes before they headed back into cover. Around 7:40am I was writing in my journal about the day 1 events when I noticed movement straight east of me. Two matures does popped out of the draw and started feeding across the south end of the field right towards my set. I let the biggest one get to 60yrds before I dropped the hammer on her. The big doe held it like a champ and she took off running right me. She made it to about 25yrds before taking a serious nosedive right in front of me (picture from my stand).

After the doe went down I went back to finishing up my journal entries. As I was finishing my notes up the doe that had come into the field with the one I shot popped back out with another good sized doe. They couldn't figure out what happened to the downed deer and wandered around the field for 5 minuted checking everything out. They eventually moved off to the northwest. Around 8:20am I spotted two does getting dogged by a little buck about 300yrds to the northeast of my set. At 9am I shut it down and picked up the 4-wheeler, because I had some serious butchering time to put in. In all it was a great weekend in "Urban MO" with 33 deer and 13 turkeys seen, and 4 deer in the freezer.