Planning fills your deer tags

Passionate deer hunters like me are hard at work planning the next year’s deer season long before the current deer season closes.

Hunters who are more casual about the sport think our near obsession with advance planning is more than a trifle overzealous.  Well maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but one thing’s certain: Planning fills deer tags.

This year, deer hunters of every level of enthusiasm will have more reason than ever to begin planning their hunts weeks, if not months, prior to opening day.

Whether you’re among the majority who favored the change or among the minority who opposed it, your hunt may be impacted because the four-point antler restriction zone now includes 65 counties (up from 29 in 2007.)

Since I opposed antler-point restrictions from the beginning, when I look at the two-color map of the new zone, I see a red tide that has now covered all but three urban counties north of the Missouri River and that has rolled south far enough to engulf virtually all of the Osage River basin.

Just in case you didn’t notice, the area I just described includes most of the state’s best combination bow and rifle deer hunting counties.

Laying my personal opinions aside for a moment, one negative impact of the  changes in the zone’s boundaries — a greatly reduced number of legal bucks — will be at its most severe this year.

Most newcomers to the sport — the people who are  vital to the future of deer hunting — will have to abandon their natural desire to pose for photos holding their first deer by its antlers.

Many died-in-the-wool “meat” hunters — the people who do the most to help the Missouri Department of Conservation meet its deer population goals — resent the inability to harvest even a single tasty young buck with either bow or firearms, despite having paid an additional $10 ($12 for bowhunters) for a license that plainly states, “any deer.”

Deer hunters who intend to utilize one or more of the hundreds of MDC-owned or managed properties scattered across the state should know that deer hunting on each individual property is governed by one of six sets of restrictions (seven if you count a total ban.)

A chart listing every property on which some form of deer hunting is allowed can be found in the deer hunting info package available from permit vendors or online.

This chart is the key that hunters who are willing to be flexible may use to open the door to some of the best deer hunting the state has to offer.

If you want to hunt during the regular firearms season in November, look for Conservation Areas limited either to archery only or to archery and muzzleloader hunting.

With the exception of a few areas close to major population centers, these areas will be nearly, if not totally, deserted on opening day.

Once you’ve narrowed the field to a half-dozen or so places, you may want to bowhunt in September or firearms-hunt in November.

Right now isn’t a minute too early to get serious about on-site scouting.

In order to plan an effective hunting strategy, you must know the locations of bedding areas, hidden feeding areas, creek crossings, active trails and trails that may become active by fall whether deer are using them in August or not.

Don’t be afraid to be aggressive.  Forty-four deer seasons and more than 100 visits to wildlife check stations have convinced me that scouting in August will not have a negative impact on deer behavior a month or more later.

The closer we get to opening day, the more impact disturbing a deer’s inner sanctum might have.

Since I tend to use the “crazed beaver” method of shooting lane clearing, I like to get my stands on private land set up as early as possible.

Setting stands on public land isn’t allowed prior to Sept. 1, but setting public land stands doesn’t create much disturbance, since cutting shooting lanes is illegal.

I often combine pre-season scouting with squirrel hunting.  This could work well for many people.

Squirrel hunting is only my second-favorite thing to do in the woods. Get me in a place where the deer sign’s thick, and a squirrel could drop acorns down my shirt collar without me ever noticing.