Missouri Deer Season 2021.

[Joseph Sheerin]

Wife and I had a very successful Missouri firearms deer season this year. After 2 days of seeing nothing but small bucks, doe and fawns.... Monday November 15th got sort of hectic, with my wife scoring on a nice heavy horned 8 in the morning, and I finishing up the day on a well aged, wide Missouri 8 point frame buck. I suspect he was on the down hill side of things, he might be the biggest bodied whitetail I have had the honor to take.

Mine was taken with a Ruger No1 in 6.5x55 Swede. While, maybe not as cool as a fine Parker SxS, as far as deer rifles go, it's near the top for me. :D

[Daryl Corona]

That's a hoss for sure Joe. Kudos to you and your bride.:bowdown:

[Garry L Gordon]

Nice Macon Co. bucks! Congratulations to you and your wife. I hope you had help dragging them out.

[Joseph Sheerin]

Nice Macon Co. bucks! Congratulations to you and your wife. I hope you had help dragging them out.

Yes, a 17year old Yamaha Big Bear did most of the heavy work. I did have to drag both of them about 100 yds or so, just so I could get the ATV to them....

I thought my buck was gonna be the end of me....... hahahaha.

Not sure how many more years of draggin out whitetails I have left in me. Or, I'll just have to start shooting the little ones maybe. :D

[Jerry Harlow]

Two brutes for sure. Hope they had several chances to continue their genes.

[Joseph Sheerin]

Two brutes for sure. Hope they had several chances to continue their genes.

The one I killed, was with a hot doe, and had been for the whole day, as we saw him in the morning. She was not harmed, so it's possible. I did not have any pics of my buck, probably 40 or 50 of my wifes, so he was not a regular on my farm.... I think he was lured there by his mistress. :D

[Dean Romig]

Nice bucks both!

I see you are a Ruger family!





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[Joseph Sheerin]

Nice bucks both!

I see you are a Ruger family!





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Her's is actually a T/C Venture in .243. She can shoot pretty darn good with that rifle, and has now killed a MO buck 5 years straight.... We are headed to WY next fall for antelopes. :D

[Garry L Gordon]

So, Macon is a CWD county, yes? How do you deal with that. We had issues last year with getting my friend's deer processed because he could not take it out of our county (Putnam) to a Share-the-Harvest location. We ended up getting it processed, but had to pay and then wait for the MDC to determine if it had CWD (it did not, BTW). So, if it had come back with the disease, it would need to be disposed of properly and we'd be out our processing fee.

Just curious, Pat, what you think of the regulations? I think I'm ready to quit deer hunting altogether (except on those rare good-weather-to-sit-in-a-tree-days, and then only take something that had exceptional antlers). The CWD regulations don't seem to have deterred Missouri deer hunters that I can see...assuming they are following those regulations.

[Joseph Sheerin]

So, in Macon County..... You have to take your deer ON THE DAY IT's HARVESTED to mandatory check stations on the first two days of season. I have got to the point, that I will not kill a deer opening weekend, unless it's special in some way or other.

The processor I used to use, will now only take boned out deer, so I no longer use them, because if I go through all the trouble of boning it out, I am gonna go ahead and grind the rest myself. There is a place, South of Macon, that will process field dressed deer still. It's Amish owned, called Buck Ridge. So, in the case of these two deer, that is where they went. I normally save December for killing a couple doe for sausage and jerky meat, and I process those myself. Cold weather being the key.

But, I hear what you are saying. I have passed on deer this year during archery season, simply because the weather was a bit warm, and I didn't want to bone them out myself during warmer weather. I like to hang a deer overnight in cold weather, before boning them out.

As for CWD.... It has yet to be found on my side of the Chariton river in Macon County.... I don't really worry about it, because I can guarantee you, people have been eating CWD deer for years now, and no one has ever got CWD. Now, if I had one tested, and knew it had it, I'd probably ditch it. A friend of mine, killed some whitetails in WY this year. One of them came back positive weeks after harvesting it, they'd already eaten some of it, but got rid of it after the test results.

For every deer killed and tested positive for cwd, I'd bet money there are a lot more that had it, and never got tested for it and people eat them.

I do take a good look at every deer we kill though, if it looks emaciated at all, I'd probably either not shoot it to begin with, or not consume it..... Both these bucks appeared to be very healthy deer, so if they did have it, it was in very beginning stages.

I guess it's just a part of deer hunting anymore....

[Richard Flanders]

This CWD/CJD, as far as they can tell, originated in New Guinea. A research physician went there to visit a Dr friend who was researching the cause and became interested enough to stay there and help for 20-25yrs! They found that, in humans, the issue was all in the brain, which the natives would relish after some warfare with another tribe, which spread the disease widely. After quite an effort, they convinced the natives to NOT eat their foe's brain after a battle so as to not get the disease, which worked. The issue was/is pretty much eradicated in New Guinea and I think remains so. The visiting Dr., Richard Rhodes, penned a fascinating and seemingly not well known book on their efforts and results called "Deadly Feasts", which I have on my shelf. It is one fascinating read. This was long before it became an issue elsewhere; these two guys were real pioneers on this ailment and set the stage for all future research on it. Scientific American also published a long article on the disease that is quite detailed and also an excellent read; I have that on the shelf also. You can actually take an infected brain and incinerate it to ash, then take the ash and feed it to chickens and they will develop the disease. Scary stuff... Someone in Scotland or somewhere buried a bunch of sheep who had scabies(same disease). Someone later went to the mass grave site and dug up earthworms over the top and fed them to chickens or something and they developed the disease.... It's a most interesting subject for anyone wanting to deep dive into it.

[Bruce Hering]

It was first found here in the US at a USDA station in Rifle CO. Interesting point to go with Richards post is animals can get it from munching on the bleached bones of sheep or deer that died and lay in the sun.

[CraigThompson]

Nice deer ! I also like the 1A in 6.5x55 , when I was deep in the #1 I always wanted 1A’s in 6.5x55 and 7x57 .

[Richard Flanders]

And the infected deer in Rifle had been imported from somewhere overseas - can't remember where. Red Deer from N Zealand??

[Bruce Hering]

And the infected deer in Rifle had been imported from somewhere overseas - can't remember where. Red Deer from N Zealand??

Richard: Could be but, I heard it was found in sheep at the station....
IIRC