The season is over and the state has tallied how many deer were checked this year. Missouri hunters statewide checked a total of 214,481, said Tom Strother of the Missouri Department of Conservation. This is down from the 235,054 deer collected in 2006′s rifle season. Continue to send us in your pictures and stories!
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On the opening weekend of firearm season, 55 deer were donated to Share the Harvest at Columbia’s Bass Pro Shops, according to operations manager Chris Baker.
Meat collected by the Share the Harvest program is donated to the Central Missouri Food Bank and help feed Columbia residents in need.
Last year, 30,000 pounds of meat were donated to the 145 agencies and 33 counties the food bank serves in its mid-Missouri service area. according to Jessica Spanglehour, director of development at the food bank.
While she cannot gauge how many deer will come in this season, Spanglehour said the company is “grateful for every deer that comes in.”
Since its inception in 1992, Share the Harvest has donated approximately 1,414,664 pounds of meat statewide, according to the Conservation Federation of Missouri website.
Share the Harvest depends on Missouri hunters to donate deer.
At Bass Pro Shops, hunters are able to bring deer to the store’s front parking lot on Saturdays and Sundays during firearm season.
From the store, deer are put into a truck and taken to a processing plant.
Hunters do not have to pay a fee to have the meat processed because the Conservation Federation of Missouri covers the cost, according to Dave Murphy, executive director of the federation.
Although visitors to Bass Pro Shops may be surprised to see hunters and their deer in front of the store, Baker said that he does not receive much negative feedback.
“Once you explain to people what the cause is for (they understand). They don’t realize how in need the food bank is of meat,” he said.
– Jess Grunberg
ps. Deer can still be donated! If you want to contribute, you can drop your deer off at Columbia’s Bass Pro this weekend.
More on Share the Harvest
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Earl Cannon from the Safari Club Program informed me that over the weekend they collected a total of 366 total deer – that translates to about 20,000 pounds donated. The local Crane’s processing plant in Ashland had 64 whole deer donated – for about 3,520 pounds. Cannon said they ran out of money to help with processing in some of the plants, so to call the plants ahead of time. He urged any hunters to give whatever they can to the program. He also said they are doing well this year, despite opening weekend numbers for deer harvested being down.
-Ben Magnuson
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“I was sitting in the stand and I saw a doe coming in from the west, and she was running in lookin’ behind her. So I got the gun up, figuring a buck was coming. A good size ten-point came in behind her. I shot him once behind the shoulder and then ran about ten yards, it almost jumped over the property line fence, so I had to shoot it twice more. Then it dropped.”
Jeff Broeder, 18, MU Student
Send us your stories and photos at thecheckpointMO@gmail.com
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I just talked to Tom Strother from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation’s central region, who had the harvest numbers for the opening weekend. Statewide, hunters checked a total of 100,502 deer. Callaway County lead all counties with 1,984 deer checked, and Boone County recorded 1,006 deer checked. Strother said the total number of deer taken in 2006′s opening weekend was 124,324 deer. Tom attributed the dropoff to the warmer temperatures on Sunday. How did the weather affect your hunt this weekend?
-Ben Magnuson
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We got an email from Holly, who has been deer hunting for 17 years! She wrote that, “one of the things I consider a trophy of the season is a good picture of my deer in the woods,” as opposed to a picture of one in a truck. She recommends packing a disposable camera while you’re hunting.
photo courtesy of Holly
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