Missouri

Missouri is an elite whitetail destination, offering a perfect blend of northern agricultural river bottoms and southern Ozark big timber. Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) manages deer through over-the-counter archery and firearms permits, complemented by managed hunts on state conservation areas.

Top trophy regions include the northern crop-rich counties along the Grand and Chariton river basins (Mercer, Putnam, Schuyler) and the timber ridges of central Missouri. The November firearms season coincides precisely with the peak of the breeding rut, generating massive harvest numbers and record-book bucks. Archery hunters enjoy generous bag limits and four full months of hunting.

Missouri is nationally recognized as one of the premier wild turkey states in the United States, consistently ranking near the top in total harvest. The mosaic of hardwood oak-hickory forests, cattle pastures, and cedar glades across the Ozark plateau provides ideal turkey brood range.

MDC's three-week spring season features morning-only shooting hours to minimize nesting disturbance. Hunters setting up along ridge tops, logging trails, and forest clearings enjoy intense fly-down cackle and gobbling action.

Following decades of conservation and natural repopulation, MDC opened a highly regulated black bear hunting season in southern Missouri's Bear Management Zones (BMZs).

Bear permits are distributed via a resident-only lottery with strict zone harvest quotas. Spot-and-stalk tactics and still-hunting near wild berry thickets and white oak acorn flats in late October provide an exciting wilderness challenge across the rugged Mark Twain National Forest.

Restored to the Missouri Ozarks through an ambitious MDC program centered at Peck Ranch Conservation Area, wild elk now roam the rugged pine and oak woodlands of Shannon, Carter, and Reynolds counties.

MDC issues an exclusive limited-entry lottery for bull and antlerless elk tags. Successful hunters participate in a historic hunt through steep Ozark hollows, glassing glades and timber burns for bugling herd bulls during the autumn rut.