The Missouri River floodplain is one area in Missouri where there's always a shot at a trophy. It's not that the big bucks are any less wary than anywhere else in the state, but the habitat is good and there are a lot of public lands to hunt on.

Many of the conservation areas are smaller and overlooked by archers, and some require that pre-season applications be filed in July or August. Even so, there are many archery-only hunting spots that create big-buck opportunities only bowhunters enjoy.

In the early 1990s, the MDC and the federal government bought up tens of thousands of acres along the river and all of those areas have big-buck potential. Far too many Missouri archers head for the northern reaches of our state and miss the exceptional opportunities that are a lot closer to home.

Here's a look at three public spots in the floodplains that deserve your attention this winter.

REFORM CA
The old adage that "If you build it, they will come," certainly holds true for the Reform Conservation Area. The crops and managed woodlands are just what the doctor, or in this case, maybe the veterinarian, ordered. The white-tailed deer there grow fast.

"There are some quality deer here," said MDC resource assistant Landry Jones. "The deer here know what's going on and they're hard to get. I don't know if they leave the area entirely when the hunting pressure is on or if they have small home ranges and bury in the cover, but there's some big deer here."

Jones points out that the area is heavily timbered and has to be approached in ways other than sitting in the corn and waiting for a whitetail to show up. These deer have to be patterned carefully and they can be full of surprises.

Jones hunts the area himself and depends on scouting to identify the travel corridors and active deer trails. For archers wanting to get away from the crowd, the south end of the area has the majority of timber and is more remote. The northern end has most of the agricultural fields.

Farmers and hunters alike find sheds that tell tales of the big bucks that hunters seldom see. The hunting pressure can be intense during bow season, and every year a few of the nicest bucks are taken.

The biodiversity of the area is good. The grasslands, crop fields, pastures, forest and bottomland habitat gives the herd the best of everything. Nearly 2,000 acres of oak and hickory forest provide a virtual smorgasbord of mast crop and shelter.

Many Reform CA hunters focus on the 1,400 acres of crop fields. Pre-scouting the fields to determine if the bucks are utilizing them is strongly recommended. The fields with the most edge cover and immediate escape routes are the ones that the older bucks will move into, though a lot of the traveling will be done after dark once hunters have arrived. Corn, beans, and wheat are on a two-year rotation.