Any of you Missouri guys ever hunt Mingo?**PICS ADDED**

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Going down to Mingo Refuge tomorrow morning and wondering if any of my Missouri comrades ever hunt there? Have any luck, and maybe like to help me out?
Not asking for your honey holes, I wouldn't expect that, but maybe point me in the right direction and clue me in on what to look for this time of year.
What are the deer doing down there and what areas may be better than others?

Tomorrow will mainly be a scouting trip, but as always I will have bow in hand just in case. I'd rather be lucky than good any day.
     
I would surely appreciate any help or advice.

Thanks,
SEMO

wish i could help,  ive heard its low lying oak flats, i think they have a managed rifle hunt there, good luck , hope to hear a good report.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

My Dad and I are going down there tomorrow morning and he's been there before about 30 years ago, but I've never been there. Should be fun, always an adventure going some place new.

I'll keep ya posted.

[Mudd]

I've squirrel and coon hunted down there  with my Mountain Curs but that was years ago. So as usual, I'm not much help....lol

I know you'll have a great trip because the important thing is that it's time together with your dad.

I pray both of you have a great day!

God bless,Mudd

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Thanks Mudd.
Evidently not many guys on here have hunted down there? I thought I'd get lots of guys to chime in about Mingo, guess not?
I do know one fella on here that hunts down there and I sent him an email, but havent' heard back from him yet.

[Steve H.]

Don Roper from Farmington use to hunt there, maybe still does, don't know.  When I lived in Archville I usually went to IL until I got an ivite on private close to the city so Ididn't explorte too much down there.

[treestandbutt]

Don knows every square inch of that place, grew up nearby, but doubt he would give anything away.  I've hunted it several times with little success.  As you know, it's several thousand acres of mature timber that is almost perfectly flat.  In a bumper acorn crop year like this year it's tough to find them.  I've been told that it's best when the water is up in the swamp, hunting the water edge and little knolls or high spots.  Not my cup of tea, I like structure and terrain features that dictate travel more than flatlands.

Good luck.

[Huntschool]

This shpould be interesting.  Its a fantastic waterfowl area.  I have seen a ton of deer there just driving through.

Good luck.  Like to hear your results.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Just got back home from Mingo and yes.....it is exactly everything you all have said. It's wide open old growth timber, not a whole lot of cover, didn't see a ton of acorns, but the deer have probably got them worked over pretty good already?
I did find where they had been rooting around for leftover acorns around big white oaks with lots of droppings and a few horned trees, and that would probably be a good place for a stand, but I don't own a climber anymore.

Being on the ground......I think it would be tough to get the drop on a deer because there's just not much undergrowth. It is flat and easy walking though, a still hunter's dream but lack of ground cover would make that difficult also, at least with a bow anyway.

@Huntschool- Waterfowl Galore!
They were pumping water out of the canals while we were there and flooding some cut crop or CRP fields....don't know which? There were at least 1,000 Mallards on one pool, and it was in a "No Hunting" area........go figure. Evidently ducks ain't stupid either? Lot's of geese and some other ducks, but I don't know my ducks all that well....except for mallards, woodies, and teal. Anything else is just an uneducated guess.

We did see deer crossing the road on the way in and they too were headed into "No Hunting" zones.
Deer ain't stupid either, maybe they exchange info with the mallards?  :rolleyes:  

One day and first time ever on a new area isn't enough to make accurate assumptions, but just from what I saw today.......if I were to seriously try to hunt it right, I would have to find the thickest cover on the whole place and get close to it. I think that's probably where the heaviest concentration of deer will be.
Just my opinion.

It is some fantastic looking acreage, but lack of cover and so much old growth big timber almost makes  ME  spooky. LOL
I can imagine how the deer feel.

I also noticed that you have to pay close attention to the signs that tell you where you are allowed to hunt and where you must stay out of. I almost walked right into a no hunting area that was only marked by a couple of small white signs, if I hadn't been walking down the edge of a cut corn field and was inside the wood line instead.....I wouldn't have seen them.
Oooops, sorry.  :(  

Beware that some of these off limits areas are  Not  well marked.

We may make another trip down sometime, not sure yet? But at least it was better than sitting in the house by a long shot. Fresh cold morning air and mother nature is way better than a stuffy old house and channel flippin' any day!    

I also took a few pics for you all who have never been there......this is what I was up against.

 WIDE OPEN!
Pics taken in 3 directions all around me
 

 

 

Going in....new green winter wheat field on left and leftover corn field on the right.
The inside edge of the winter wheat field, just inside the timber is where all the acorn rooting was going on and that would be a good evening spot, but it's also close to the road......I dunno?
Also, just to be fair. We were hunting late morning and mid day, so this spot right here may be crawling with deer in the evening?

 

 

[C Kerley]

That's interesting.  When I lived in Caruthersville I knew guys who duck hunted there, but I didn't even know it was an option to bowhunt.

[Living_waters]

LOL biggest deer I have shot was probably just south of your picks a 100 or so yrds. The landing strip (last photo)hasn't been hunted a whole lot sice rifle season, there has been a 300lb bore visiting it regularly. last week there was some major rooting on the lower end. That area between ditch three and 4 has been over hunted this year, several nice deer have taken from there though.

Big problem now is NO water and lots of food, nothing to funnel deer. Mingo is some diffent hunting, the deer will run the high donicks like deer run ridges in the hills even though these are only a few feet higher than the rest of the topography. Cover is not a big deal as one would think, I haven't been busted half of the time on the ground as I have in the trees. The old growth timber means there is not much low cover and in a stand you make a big profile easy to spot in the open woods. Ground hunting you make use of lay dows and root wads to break up your   profile. It is not my favorite place to hunt but it is just a couple miles from my house and I have been running around on it for close to thirty five years. When I was 10 I would ride my bike out there and fish during the summer, I would kill my kid if they did that when they were 10 LOL.
Sorry I missed ya Semo

[Gray Buffalo]

yes I have and it was to flat for my liking. Everything and place looked the same

[SEMO_HUNTER]

Originally posted by Living_waters:
LOL biggest deer I have shot was probably just south of your picks a 100 or so yrds. The landing strip (last photo)hasn't been hunted a whole lot sice rifle season, there has been a 300lb bore visiting it regularly. last week there was some major rooting on the lower end. That area between ditch three and 4 has been over hunted this year, several nice deer have taken from there though.

Big problem now is NO water and lots of food, nothing to funnel deer. Mingo is some diffent hunting, the deer will run the high donicks like deer run ridges in the hills even though these are only a few feet higher than the rest of the topography. Cover is not a big deal as one would think, I haven't been busted half of the time on the ground as I have in the trees. The old growth timber means there is not much low cover and in a stand you make a big profile easy to spot in the open woods. Ground hunting you make use of lay dows and root wads to break up your   profile. It is not my favorite place to hunt but it is just a couple miles from my house and I have been running around on it for close to thirty five years. When I was 10 I would ride my bike out there and fish during the summer, I would kill my kid if they did that when they were 10 LOL.
Sorry I missed ya Semo

No problem, maybe sometime we can meet up down there and you can show me around?

I kinda thought maybe some of the rooting looked a bit too deep for deer, but I've never been around hogs before so I don't recognize their sign.
I readily recoginze deer rooting, and the presence of deer droppings in that area tells me the deer are using there, but at what time is a different puzzle to solve. It could be at 3am for all I know? If theft wasn't a problem, a trail cam would answer that piece of the puzzle.

I can relate to what you are saying about the lack of water and how it funnels deer movement. After being there, I can completely understand how that would work.
As a matter of fact, my dad said that's how they hunted them on Mingo 30 years ago, that was the last time he was there. He said things have changed alot since then. LOL

[SEMO_HUNTER]

BTW- I thought that the area we were in was bow hunting only? Guess I miss understood the pamphlet?
We did speak to a park ranger down there and he said that there was a muzzle loader hunt this weekend, and I thought by the way he explained it that the ML hunt would be further west of where we were?

[Huntschool]

As I said I have driven through just looking.  Have always thought it would be a grin to try and hunt it.

Frpm what Living_waters said it seems that "landing strip" might be a good place to start with a stand.  I don't know MO's rules on tree steps.  Pop up Ground blind might work but I have no experience with them.

Its just such a cool looking place.  Did you look at the ground back around the lake.  Seems to me that was "thicker" than the oak savanah on most of the property.

[Living_waters]

Huntschool has it figured out head south west from the landing strip and you will hit the edge of monopoly lake, deer feed on the grass in the lake bed and use it for cover while the woods are crawling with hunters during the day, good place to find a run and it is heavier cover there.

There is a special hunt this week end on some of the closed areas. They have two a year. This one is an open draw hunt and earlier in the year they have a youth and special needs hunt.

Gray Buffalo you said a bunch by "everything looks the same" one necessary piece of equipment is a good compass, GPS will work this time of year but when the canopy is full it is not to be trusted. Some one is always lost LOL. A couple of guys walked up to me earlier this year and asked me how to get back to their truck, lol it was dark then. they had came to look for their stand at noon. They said they came out the afternoon before and put up their stand and finally walked out to their truck at 11:45pm that night . They had one of those back tracker GPS's and it would skip and just keep taking them in circles. LOL

[Living_waters]

Originally posted by Huntschool:
As I said I have driven through just looking.  Have always thought it would be a grin to try and hunt it.

 

You ought to be on top of one of those high donics when it is flooded and start rattling and here a buck come crashing through the water towards ya. You can hear him coming for 200 yards and the way the sound travels he sound like he is right on you from the start. Talk about getting the old heart pumping.

[SEMO_HUNTER]

That's what I meant about finding thicker cover. If I were to seriously try to hunt it, and hunt it the way I know how to hunt......I would be looking for thicker cover and I know the deer do also. I don't know how much pressure they get on that place, but one could only imagine that it's quite a bit. They know human smell, they know what a truck door slamming means, they have seen, heard, and smelled it all.

Thicker cover the better and then zero in tighter on them. I try to find the thickest possible stuff around and then hunt the outside edges of it with the wind in my favor. Ground blind or tree stand normally, but in this case a ground blind might be a better option for me since I don't own a climber anymore and a ground blind is easy to put up and take down the same day.

 Huntschool - Since it's a Federal Wildlife Refuge the regulations say no tree steps, or anything may be screwed into the trees, nor anything cut or removed from them at all. Basically no damage to the trees period, but hopefully it's ok to prune a little bit? A little snip...snip here or there?  :rolleyes:  

Of course a guy can't tell much from one day and just a few hours in the woods, it would take multiple trips down there to get my bearings on where I would need to be. I wish I lived closer to it.

Living_Waters- That last scenerio you just describes sounds like a rush! I'd love to get in on that!
I bet the mosquitos are vicious down there in Septmeber with all that water around.

[Living_waters]

Thermocell is your best friend at least until the first frost. I have a Guile I made out of a bug suit for early season and turkey hunting on the refuge. It usually is all I use but this year the skeeters were terrible.

Usually we have water by now so you can hunt and not have to break ice, but it looks like it will be later this year. Last year when it froze over it made walking super easy, I just used the flooded areas to sneak in, The ice was awful quite and easy to travel, but it took the rush out of the deer crashing through the water.

[Huntschool]

“You ought to be on top of one of those high donics when it is flooded and start rattling and here a buck come crashing through the water towards ya. You can hear him coming for 200 yards and the way the sound travels he sound like he is right on you from the start. Talk about getting the old heart pumping.”

Yea.  Years ago I hunted around Dermot, AR with a college buddy.  We hunted that flooded pinoak stuff.  It was crazy....  Likely, now, my pacemaker would go off.....

You guys are killin me.  I think I should go over to Cape and get a MO tag.

My wife's people were scattered from East Prarrie over to "the Bluff". Thats why we were driving through.

Seems like I remember several areas that looked like old farm fields and some that were planted.  Don't remember "the No Hunting signs" so perhaps these were off limit but it sure looked good.