Just found a wonderful spread in the Missouri Game & Fish Magazine about the Top Counties per Region in Buck Harvest for last year, which serves as a great forecast for this hunting season!
The article is on page 32-34 & continues on page 57 from the
November 2012 issue.
For our area which is the
Eastern Ozarks the top county is Texas, followed by Howell and then Wayne counties. The buck harvest for 2011 in Texas County was 1,987, Howell County 1,888 and Wayne County 1,477 that's a lot of bucks, mounts and deer chili for dinner! Now the article does go into the surrounding counties but I wanted to highlight on the areas where we have most of our
owner financed land and hunting leases.
"
This 17-county region [ Eastern Ozarks Region] came in fourth place out of eight regions in the estimated number of antlered deer with 52,681 bucks. Hunters reported taking 20,112 antlered deer in this region last year, which also ranked it near top at second place statewide. The top three antlered buck harvest counties in were Texas 1,987 (first statewide); Howell 1,888 (second); and Wayne with 1,477 (11th). None of the 17 counties in this region are included in the APR zone. [Antler Point Restrictions]" (
Missouri Game & Fish,
"Missouri's 2012 Deer Outlook-Part 2 Finding Trophy Bucks" by Tony Kalna Jr, page 57)
The article continues to say that "a trophy buck can be killed just about anywhere in Missouri, but the numbers don't lie. Some counties and regions simply are better when it comes to having more bucks and more trophy-class bucks." So, this bodes well for this years hunting season, if you've been wondering where your next big buck and possible winner of the Boone and Crockett record breaker is, then why not come down into
Howell and Texas counties here in the Missouri Ozarks and bag your next big break!
