Soon it will be chilly again and that means the thoughts of thousands of Missourians will turn to….deer. The conservation department already is thinking about them.
One week from today the conservation department will start taking applications for the six-thousand slots available in managed deer hunts.
Those are special hunts in state parks, national wildlife refuges, conservation areas, and urban parks.
More than 23,000 people applied for permits last year but only 25 percent of their names were drawn to become participants. And fewer than one-third of those hunters got a deer.
The department plans more than 100 of these managed hunts. Last year’s hunts started in mid-September and continued for about four months. Not quite 18-hundred deer were killed.
Sign ups start July 1 and continue through August 15. The department will post the winners for each hunt’s drawings, starting in mid-September and continuing through the end of the year.
