Kyle Carroll's Outdoor Journal
The Outdoor Journal
Kyle Carroll
The End of October
October has gone past us again. One of the best months of the year seems to always fly by. With its passing, two seasons came to a close. The Fall Firearms Turkey season ended on the 31st and once again, numbers continue to sink out ODF sight for that season. Last year the kill fell to less than half what it was just five years before with a season total of 2117. This years numbers dipped below that at 1835. Almost a hundred birds were checked on the last day of the season while the youth deer season was open. I wonder if there is any coloration ? A lot of Northwest Missouri Counties did not break double figures in the number of birds checked. Livingston with 14, Harrison with 24, Grundy with 11 and DeKalb with 11 were some of the few that did, Caldwell county only saw 2 birds checked for the entire season. Gentry beat its last year total of one with 4 this year.
Watching the archery total catch up and in some counties pass the firearms total confirms a trend that his been happening for some time. With the legalization of crossbows, archery hunters in many cases are opting to forgo the firearms turkey hunt. They are choosing instead to hunt with their archery tag and take a turkey if the opportunity presents itself while concentrating on deer. It's also normal for fall firearms turkey tags to drop off in sales when turkey numbers are low.
The Early-Youth deer season took place over then weekend with 15,344 deer checked in. Almost 10,000 of those were adult bucks.
The deer rut is on and the time will change on the 7th, so drive careful for the next two weeks.
