On portions of the river, the MDC holds an every-other-year drawing and issues permits for hunters to build blinds at specified locations on the Missouri. These blinds are reserved for their builders, but only if the builders occupy them by 6 a.m. -- after that, it's first come, first served.

However, the blinds aren't the only good hunting places on the river. Look for islands that tail out into broad sandbars, flooded willow thickets, shallow bays and tributary mouths.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER
The Mississippi River also provides some excellent waterfowling opportunities, and the potential hunting area is so huge it's daunting to even try to describe it. Rewarding and blissfully uncrowded duck hunting may be found all along the river, and not just inside the designated conservation areas like Upper Mississippi and Ted Shanks.

Check out the lower reaches of any tributaries flowing into the Mississippi. There aren't many of these, but they can yield bonanza duck hunts because they often serve as staging areas for huge numbers of migrating birds.

The Des Moines River on the Missouri-Iowa line is one of the larger such tributaries, but smaller streams like the Fox, Wyaconda, Fabius and Salt, as well as numerous small creeks and sloughs, also provide good freelance hunting opportunities.

Hunting on the Mississippi and its bays and backwaters can be exceptionally good at times in the southeastern part of the state, particularly above and below New Madrid. Ducks headquartering on Reelfoot Lake and Reelfoot NWR in western Tennessee fly over this portion of the river on their feeding forays, and hunters with good decoy spreads in the nooks and bays along this stretch of river can find action like they had back in the "good old days."

Missouri waterfowl hunters don't have it too bad. The MDC has put a lot of effort into providing good habitat for waterfowl at its conservation areas, leased lands and cooperative areas, and has done a great deal to provide hunter access to those areas.

The draw and reservation system at the more popular CAs is the fairest way to distribute hunting opportunity among the public. But these managed areas aren't the only places at which Missourians can find top-quality public hunting. Tap into the MDC's wealth of information sources (get started at www.mdc.mo.gov), do both your homework and your legwork, and start putting together your own list of "secret" public hotspots.