‘Deer season is a big deal’ in Missouri’s Howell County

Never has a small deer looked so big.

Sitting at the end of a trail in the White Ranch Conservation Area in south-central Missouri, Patricia Ward watched a small doe tiptoe out of the timber.

She squeezed the trigger on her rifle and ended years of frustration.

On Saturday, opening day of the Missouri firearms deer season, she shot her first deer.

“I’m disabled, so I usually can’t stay out too long,” she said as she teared up. “I love deer hunting, but I’ve never taken one.

“This one might be small, but it’s a trophy to me.”

Clad in bright-range safety clothing, she hugged her significant other, Tom Beaver, and reveled in the moment.

Beaver did, too. He has been deer hunting this patch of wild and woolly timber near the Arkansas line since the mid-1970s. He chased whitetails there when only a chosen few got permission to hunt the land that Harry White owned.

Today, it is a conservation area owned by the Missouri Department of Conservation and it is one of the main reasons Howell County is one of the top deer-hunting counties in Missouri.

The White Ranch had a lot of deer back in 1976 when Beaver started hunting there … and it still does.

“Years ago, we’d have to clear out the brush and trees in a spot just to find a spot to set up deer camp,” said Beaver, 76, who lives with Ward in Kennett, Mo. “It was covered up with deer, but it was wild and woolly.

“Now there are gravel roads through here and places where you can camp. It makes it easier to hunt.”

Beaver and Ward are so attached to the 6,614-acre hunting spot that they built a cabin near there 27 years ago, hauling used lumber and other materials from their home.

While others set up campers and pitch tents in the clearings on the conservation area, they drive to their hunting spot early on the morning on the opener.

Both Beaver and Ward, 54, are disabled and can’t walk far. But they aren’t about to give up their deer hunting.

They’ve brought up a family in these deer woods. They can tell stories about grandsons and in-laws who shot 10-point bucks here.

But maybe that’s not so unusual in Howell County, which has a rich history of deer hunting.

“We don’t have the steep, rugged terrain that many Ozarks counties do,” said Gerald Smith, regional law-enforcement supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. “We’re more of a plateau. We have a diversity of land types. We have the timber, but we also have large fields of rye, wheat and alfalfa, and deer like that.”

For many Howell County residents, deer hunting is a fall way of life. Three West Plains businessmen, Ron Dixon, Rick Judd and Joe Fox, went in together 25 years ago and bought a 740-acre piece of land.

At the time, Fox said, “We only saw three deer on our land before the season.”

Today, it’s a deer-hunting paradise. They planted food plots, followed timber management and came up with a deer-harvest plan. And it has paid off.

A group of 10 gathered Saturday at the old farm house they remodeled — “You won’t find too many deer camps that have a pool table,” Fox said — and they greeted their favorite hunting season.

By the time the day was done, Casey Fox and Eric Judd both had taken 10-point bucks.

“People go crazy over deer hunting around here,” Joe Fox said. “Some businesses and schools in small towns shut down for the week.

“Deer season is a big deal.”