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Hunting the ca's

Hey all, first post. I'm a 40 year old father of three that loves the outdoors. For the past 4 years I've gone exclusively archery on public land. Down here in cajun country that means huge blocks of timber. My current favorite land I hunt down here is referred to as the palmetto jungle. My dad calls it Vietnam. Its 14,000 acres of thick red and white oaks and you can't fit another palmetto bush on the place. It's a little over 20 minutes from a town of 300,000 so pressure is immense to say the least. While staring at my one small opening at 27 yards all year I really started wanting a Missouri public land hunt. I have a few questions. The hunt won't take place until the 2016 season, but I've already begun scouring the MDC website. Tremendous tool you guys have there. I'll be on the northerly side of the state, I just haven't decided which way north. How do you guys hunt with all the ag fields and open fields? I'm assuming finding the transition from bedding to feed back in the timber. The only problem is the tracts of timber look to small. Its hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that these small tracts can hold pressured animals. When you're picking a CA what are your must have's in a unit to produce deer. Do you want a tract of nothing but timber or an open tract with a 50/50 mixture of timber and ag/open fields? Are the deer easily patternable? Also, while its a good thing for the hunters, I see all the ca's are very accessible, is it hard to get away and feel secluded. Thanks for any input. I plan to go the weekend before youth season to some scouting Saturday and Sunday Hopefully Sunday evening have a good ideal of what the big picture is and start moving in for my first scout sits. From that point hopefully adjust in until I'm where I need to be. I'll hunt Monday thru Friday morning. My expectations are a good time. I'd like to see some places that make me say wow because of there beauty and unwind with a week of seclusion. I'm not looking to kill your woods out. Two deer a year feed my family and my son usually wraps that up on youth weekends down here. I would love a chance to view multiple deer. If I'm able to take a legal deer by state regs, then that's a bonus.

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I hope you find what you want. Generally, hunt food supplies or hunt the edges where multiple habitat type meets. This is where you will see the most deer on non-pressure areas. On public land, receiving pressure, you may want to hunt trails within some type of cover if you do not see much at what I mentioned first. You will see less deer on the trails, but you may have more shot opportunities. Intersecting trials within cover are better yet. There are generally spots that are somewhat overlooked on all the CAs. Check out ditches and pinch points for trails. Follow a gully or ditch up a hill.

I use to hunt Fox River CA in Clarke county. They have a nice lake, a pine forested area with a nice mix of hills, fields and brush. However, that was about 20 years ago.

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Fountain Grove use to have some good deer hunting, but since it is a Waterfowl Area, the "fine managment" of the area has slowly choked off more areas every year. Most of these areas don't even flood!! Other areas are not accessible because they say Archers may scare the ducks!!! I think this is crazy! I wish there was a way to get this changed.

What Brett_63 says is sooooo true.

The manager of each specific wildlife area can set his OWN goals. Most manage the area for whatever species they hunt, in effect giving them control over what is viewed as "their personal hunting area"!!!!

Schell Osage and Four Rivers are another example.

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