Area hunters bag hundreds of deer of first day of firearms season

John Muench and his family almost started deer season early.

As they were returning home Friday evening from the Bayou Bar & Grill in Pocahontas, a large buck jumped in front of their vehicle. "I had to get to almost a dead stop to avoid hitting it," Muench said at Reis Meat Processing on Route C after delivering the animals he and his daughter bagged Saturday morning.

Muench knows from experience that a collision with a deer can be expensive. Last December he ran into a deer that caused $1,100 damage to his vehicle. He kept the meat.

On Saturday, the first day of firearms deer season, Muench, his daughter, Margaret George, and her husband, Kenneth, all of Farrar, Mo., hunted at Muench's farm on Route D in Perry County. Out the door at 4 a.m., Margaret George and John Muench both bagged a deer.

Kenneth George's luck was not so good. "I don't know. That's just the way it is this year," he said. "But I'll probably go out again."

As of 8 p.m. Saturday, the Department of Conservation reported that first-day hunters had taken 317 deer in Cape Girardeau County, 569 in Bollinger County, 501 in Perry County and 71 in Scott County.

Failing to make a kill the first weekend of deer season doesn't translate into a lack of success throughout the 10-day period when modern firearms are the legal weapon for hunters. But it can make it more difficult.

In 2007, hunters took 573 deer in Cape Girardeau County on the first weekend of firearms season. In Bollinger County, the number was 1,166, in Perry County the first weekend haul was 978 and in Scott County the figure was 169. Those figures are just less than half the totals for the full season, when 1,288 kills were reported in Cape Girardeau County, 2,237 deer were harvested in Bollinger County, 2,011 were taken in Perry County and 377 were bagged in Scott County.

Firearms season is the largest harvest, but there are seasons for bow hunters, young hunters and those who use muzzle-loading guns. The other seasons are closed now, but archery season reopens Nov. 26 and runs through Jan. 15, youth hunting will have a second weekend Jan. 3 and 4, and hunters who use muzzle-loading weapons can hunt from Nov. 28 through Dec. 7.

The story is similar statewide, said A.J. Hendershott, regional supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation. "The majority of the harvest happens on opening weekend of firearms deer season, with almost half of the deer killed."

Hunting is necessary to control deer populations, Hendershott said. Deer are Missouri's largest game animal and there are no natural predators other than humans. "A deer herd with normal conditions and no predation would double itself in three years," Hendershott said. "Hunting maintains populations in balance."

And a large number of those deer find their way to Reis' meat locker for storage and processing. Owner Revis Reisenbichler said he expected to receive about 200 carcasses Saturday and process about 700 throughout the deer season.

The average yield of venison, which Reisenbichler said is usually processed into sausage and a ground meat product with pork, is about 35 pounds per animal. The largest he's seen in the nine years since he gave up a shift job at Nordenia and purchased the processing business is 105 pounds. "That was a monster," Reisenbichler said. "That was a big deer."

Reisenbichler used to be one of the people in the woods before dawn on opening day. "That time of year was my vacation," he said.

He must be at the processing plant early on opening day, but that won't keep him out of the woods entirely. "I'll sneak out," he said. "I just enjoy being out in the woods."

Many of the hunters who deliver deer to Reisenbichler participate in the Share the Harvest program, which allows for the donation of all or part of a deer to food pantries. In 2006, 322,469 pounds of venison were donated from 80 counties.

While Reis was up to his wrists in ground venison -- he's processing the archery season harvest now -- outside Elizabeth Sanders of Biehle, Mo., was waiting for the head of the nine-point buck her husband, Terry, shot as they were moving from their deer stand. The rest of the buck will become sausage, venison bratwurst and deer jerky.

"It was crazy," she said of her morning. A small buck had come into range, but the shot missed. As they decided to move to another location, a doe being chased by the large buck came into view. "I told my husband to stop as I was halfway down," she said. "He dropped it with one shot."

Others who were bringing their deer carcasses in for processing said they anticipate the first day of deer season because it is a little easier to succeed in their hunt. "There is a little more natural movement than when someone has scared them," Brendan Murphy said. "After 10 days, they have been jumped three or four times."

Muench agreed. "They are not all riled up and spooked," he said. "They are not dumb about what is going on."

As he talked about the morning's hunt, Muench's granddaughters, Katelyn, 8, and Amelia, 6, shivered in the wind. The youngsters spent Saturday morning with their grandmother, but Katelyn said it will be her last opening day at home.

"I'm going next year," she said.

rkeller@semissourian.com

388-3642

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