Reform CA is about nine miles east of Fulton on County Route O. The closest major city or town is Jefferson City. For an area map or more information, contact the MDC at (573) 884-6861 or (573) 592-4080.

ST. LOUIS REGION
Howell Island Conservation Area
This 2,547-acre tract of land is just three miles off state Highway 40 on Olive Street/Eatherton Road in St. Charles County. This area's closest major city is St. Louis.

Howell Island is composed primarily of river-bottom woodlands with lots of cottonwood, willow and pecan trees. The MDC has planted some food plots throughout the area for wildlife. Howell Island is known not only for its good deer population but also for its extremely thick cover.

"It can be very thick at Howell Island," said MDC wildlife regional supervisor Joel Porath. "We burned about one-third of the area in 2000, and since then there have been brush fires that burned a couple of hundred acres. These burns allowed for grasses and underbrush to grow and created some great heavy bedding cover for the deer there."

Access to Howell Island is the biggest obstacle in hunting there. There is only one causeway that crosses the Missouri River and leads to the island. This is the only way to access this tract by land. If the river is up, the only way to get to the island is by boat from the Missouri River.

"Many folks access the island by boat as their primary means of access whether the river is up or not," Porath said. "Once on the island, there is a good loop trail about nine miles long that goes through this tract."

In some places, the looping trail meanders near the Missouri River while other portions of it lead deeper into the island.

Hunters wanting to get away from the crowd might consider access from the river. There is a boat ramp located at Weldon Springs CA, which is located right across the river from Howell Island.

For more information or an area map of Howell Island CA or Weldon Springs CA, contact the MDC at (636) 441-4554.

NORTHEAST REGION
Ted Shanks CA
This CA in Pike County is a land in regeneration. The great flood of 1993 greatly damaged the habitat at this public deer hunting land favored by archers. The high waters of the Mississippi River devastated nearly all of the oak trees on the property and just about all other tree species. The flood's wake left behind a silted-over tract with thousands of acres of standing dead timber. In fact, for a long time the MDC issued warnings to hunters and other visitors of the area, about the possibility of dead trees and limbs falling or blowing down on them. However, after years of rehabilitation, this 6,705-acre tract is well on its way to recovery.

"A lot of the dead timber has either fallen or we have pushed it down to clear it off," said MDC wildlife biologist Ryan Kelly. "We actually started a clearing project in 2004, and we have cleared about 925 acres of the timbered area that had grown up into invasive grasses that overtook the area after the flood."