Northwest:

August 10th

Busy Busy Busy. That's the theme for my dad and I this offseason. Can you believe we are already approaching mid August? We still have quite a bit of work to do to get ready for the first week of the season. Ideally all our stands would already have been hung, but that's not the case. We have only got two sets hung thus far and have a lot of work yet to do. We have gotten all of our food plots in so at least we have that going for us now. It seems it rained all spring and early summer. Now we can't even get a sniff of rain for those plots, let alone temps under 95 degrees. To say it's hot would be an understatement.

We gained access to two neighboring farms this past spring and plan to not even hunt my dad's farm until the 27th of October when we will be in the woods 25 straight days. It will be challenging hunting new ground, but one of the properties I am very familiar with so we should be able to locate some good deer. On the other property we really don't know what to expect, but do know some good bucks are on it after speaking to the landowner. It's my mission in 2010 to get my oldest son AJ his first buck this year and he's itching as bad as any of us to get out there and get the job done.

We've taken an inventory of the does, bucks and fawns and after looking through over 15,000 images we are beginning to forumalte our hit list for this season. With a solid management plan in place for this year we are going to be on a serious mission to thin out the does. The goal is to shoot 20 does off our farm and neighboring properties between my dad, family, friends and I. Unfortunately a few of the bucks on our hit list we have yet to catch up to in the fields or on camera, but we know they are out there so it's only a matter of time before they slip up. August is always our best month for capturing pictures of bacehlor groups. With a little over a month until the season we're full speed ahead and can't wait to get this season going to show you some good Missouri bucks. We're going to be updating this blog regulary throughout the season so check in here for the most recent information on what the deer are doing in your neck of the woods. Time to go sling some arrows. I'm out!

-Andy Yost-  

North Central:    

August 9th

Its been a slow start to the season for Matt and I thus far.  Our best early season farm was beans last fall, so naturaly its planted in corn this fall which makes it next to impossible to get velvet footage let alone get the deer out of the corn and to our cameras.  We have spent a couple weekends hanging, trimming and arranging stands and have pretty much wraped that up.  Throughout the next 4 or 5 weeks our plan is to keep on our trail cameras and try to finish our invintory and hitlist.  The fields that we have been setting on of an evening, the deer have been getting to the field after dark which is a little discouraging.  By the looks of the tops of the beans, there are plenty of mouths at the table.  We have one new farm this year and dont plan to mess with it till mid October.  At that point we will sneak in with a couple of cameras and hang a set or two in some pinch points for the first week of November.  This farm is all timber, so the first year we will start with the obvious and then adjust next season.  Otherwise, we expect to have a great season and lay down some great footage and even better bucks.  A big thanks to all the fans and supporters of the show, Missouri has some great potential and great deer if we just let the young deer reach their maturity.  Enjoy the rest of your summer, things should be rockin in a couple months.  Take care and safe hunting...

Stephen Stockman  

Northeast:

 August 9th

 I hit the bean fields four nights this past week to film velvet footage.  From what I can tell, the bucks are showing up just before dark. 

The first night a giant 150's eight point and his much smaller 10 point buddy came out around 8:20 p.m. to eat in the beans.  The second night I didn't even see a deer.  The beans were extremely tall and I didn't have the best view of the field. Two nights ago I filmed a group of 10 bachelor bucks file out around 8:30 p.m.  One nice 140's eight point and three low 130's.  Last night two nice bucks came out around 8:35 p.m. 

When the bucks come out that late it doesn't afford very good camera light, but it is still super fun to see some giant Missouri whitetails.  I need to go check trail cameras today, but most of my good trail camera pictures from two weeks ago were also at last light or just after dark.

 -Rick Knochel-

Central:

August 12th

It sure is hot here in the Central part of the state and my blood is nearly boiling with anticipation for this year’s season.  As I’m 20 foot up a tree in 100 plus temperatures re-trimming shooting lanes and adjusting stands it makes it far more bearable to imagine the cool November morning this coming fall when one of the deer from our hit list comes sneaking past the set.  For a chance at a shooter, these countless hours of work and buckets (literally) of sweat, are more than worth the effort.  I wouldn’t say we’re done hanging stands…let’s call it half done.    

  Efforts continue on the Family Farm in OsageCounty where the majority of our hit-list bucks and rut hunting will take place.  This year is certainly different in terms of trail camera pictures; last year we complied a list of 16 bucks 4 ½ years old or older to pursue during the season.  However, this year the cameras have only revealed a half dozen or so confirmed shooters, but we’ve had other years when trail camera pictures were not spectacular and we have found that this has not affected our success in the fall.  The bucks are out there, they’re just not showing up to the cameras yet.  I can say that the mature buck pictures that we have gotten so far this season have been on salt/mineral licks more than any other attractant. 

  Also, for anyone that has not had a chance to mow their clover yet lately, I would strongly consider holding off until we have a drop in temperatures.  Clover is pretty tough, but it’s certainly not indestructible and several days of high temperatures immediately following a stressor (mowing) can permanently damage your plot.  So, it looks like I will be waiting awhile to mow my clover plots.

  My late Grandma Wolfe used to say that you had to plant your turnips on August 13^th rain or shine.  You can bet that on August 13^th I will be planting my Big-N-Beasty Brassicas food plot (which includes turnips) into some prepared soil.  Also in the coming week we will be planting the majority of our fall food plots.  Soybeans, wheat, oats, brassicas, and clover make up the majority of our food plots.  Soybeans have already been planted back in April/May and some of our clover plots will be replanted in late August, but the remainder will be planted during the next two weeks.  We have a rather unconventional way of planting these wheat and oats plots directly into our standing soybean fields.  Prior to leaf drop, we simply broadcast seed directly into the standing beans.  If soil moisture is sufficient, the seeds will germinate right away and begin growing.  Since deer will focus on the beans, until they are picked, the now protected wheat or oats plot will not get much browse pressure until the beans are gone.  Occasionally, during really dry years, the seeds will not germinate until after the soybean leaves have dropped to create a kind of mulch that holds enough moisture for the seeds to sprout.  Either way this is a trick to get your wheat, oats and brassicas food plots started in soybean fields where you are typically limited to planting plots only after the crop has been harvested.  Another method of seeding a plot into a standing soybean field is to use a tractor and three point spreader or an ATV and spreader.  This saves me a lot of walking, but only in the fields that are planted as food plots and will not be harvested with a combine.  The deer will be the ones doing the harvesting on these plots.  Stay tuned for updates on our progress. 

~Korey Wolfe~

Southern:

August 9th

This is definitely going to be a new year for Tracy and I.  New hunting ground, new deer...and new Hit List bucks.  Unfortunately for us, we don't have "Area 51" to hunt this year where we had so many encounters with Lakosky and Big George.  So it's a fresh start with a clean slate, and to say we are ready is an understatement!  We will be hunting with Cackle Creek Ranch, where we already started getting ready by putting in food plots the last part of April (it was time better well spent than chasing around those Hush-Mouthed gobblers!)  I know this farm holds alot of deer, and some big bucks...but being a relatively new place to hunt, I haven't put a whole lot of time in other than the spring food plots.  I want to keep my traffic to an absolute minimum until they start to establish more fall browsing travel patterns.  There is a lot of hardwoods, bottoms and ridges on this farm, and I didn't want to leave alot of human evidence trying to find that "needle in a haystack" to put the trail cams up.  I will probably put them up within the next 2 weeks, and check them towards the first of September or the week before season starts.  New ground means alot of learning, I suspect the learning curve will come towards the middle to late October when the bucks become more territorial and start establishing their dominance.  Then I'll be adding a few to the Hit List and updating them here on the blog. 

So here we go!  I've had alot of practice bow fishing during the summer, but I'm getting the itch to start shooting fur instead of scales! 

-Mike and Tracy Earp-