Units / Missouri / Howard County
Unit research · Missouri · Howard County
Howard County — Missouri
3% public hunting land across 301,739 ac. Road access is easy — only 0% of the public land is more than a mile from a road. No landlocked public land.
Computed from primary government data by the AGPL pipeline. See the code →
Tags & season
Draw hunts on this ground.
One limited-entry deer hunt is drawn on Howard County: apply in the Missouri draw, by the agency's deadline below.
Season dates: see Missouri Department of Conservation's regulations
MDC — 2026 Fall Deer & Turkey Hunting Regulations and Information ↗
Missouri deer draw calendar
- Jul 1, 2027 — applications open
- Jul 31, 2027 — application deadline
- Aug 15, 2027 — results
Fees and draw dates from Missouri Department of Conservation, 2026-27, verified 2026-10-02. Tag type from the agency's published draw statistics: a county that appears in none of them has no limited-entry hunt we know of. Source: MDC — 2026 Fall Deer & Turkey Hunting Regulations and Information · MDC — Managed deer hunts · MDC — Elk permits and application · MDC — Black bear permits · MDC — Spring managed turkey hunts · MDC — Permit prices.
Land & access
Backcountry
Where the ground sits
Tap or hover the bars for each elevation band
Slope mix
Which way the slopes face
Share of ground steeper than 5° — flat ground has no facing
North slopes hold shade, cover and snow; south slopes open first.
USGS 3DEP 1 arc-second (30 m), slope at native resolution in a local metric projection, sampled on a 200 m grid. See the code →
Unit intelligence report
Burn history, migration coverage, and terrain for this county — The full report assembles it into one printable document and keeps it current as the facts change.
Season conditions — measured, not vibes
Historical temperatures · 2000–2025
Normals for 2000–2025 — tap or hover for a month
Measured at COLUMBIA REGIONAL AIRPORT, 55 km from the unit’s center. NOAA ISD-Lite hourly observations.
Harvest — agency survey estimates
Deer · 2025 · Telecheck, per county
2,312 harvested
no unit-level hunter count published
1,088 antlered bucks · 1,067 does · 157 button bucks
Deer harvest · 2005–2025 · 3,351 → 2,312
Season breakdown · 2025
| Season | Success | Harvest | Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Archery | — | 448 | — |
| Firearms | — | 1,854 | — |
Which season is the value play here — same ground, different odds.
Turkey · 2025 · Telecheck, per county
422 harvested
no unit-level hunter count published
350 adult gobblers · 10 hens · 62 juveniles
Turkey harvest · 2005–2025 · 314 → 422
Season breakdown · 2025
| Season | Success | Harvest | Hunters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spring | — | 400 | — |
| Fall | — | 22 | — |
Which season is the value play here — same ground, different odds.
Deer and turkey checked through MDC's Telecheck system, per COUNTY, for every season since 2005 — twenty-one seasons, the deepest per-unit record in OpenHunt. Every deer and turkey taken in Missouri must be Telechecked by 10 p.m. on the day of harvest, so these are counts, not survey estimates. Deer is split three ways: antlered bucks, button bucks and does, exactly as MDC records them — doe fawns are counted with the does, so "button bucks" is the male fawns only. The firearms figure is MDC's own "All Firearms" total: every firearms portion, from the youth and antlerless portions to November and alternative methods. Managed hunts appear only in the all-seasons total. ⚠️ NO HUNTER COUNTS. Missouri sells deer and turkey permits statewide, so no county-level count of hunters exists in any MDC publication, and a success rate would need one. These are harvest totals. These are the Telecheck records as MDC serves them. From 2017 on they agree with MDC's final harvest summaries within a third of a percent; 2015 and 2016 run 2.5% and 1.1% above the final figures MDC published for those seasons. Fall archery turkey runs above MDC's fall summary page. Source: MDC Telecheck harvest data (deer and turkey, per county, 2005-present) · MDC Deer Harvest Summaries (final, per county and portion) · MDC Turkey Harvest Summaries.
How these numbers are made
Computed, not curated: no paid research team, no opinions dressed as data. If a number looks wrong, tell us at support@openhuntmaps.com — the fix ships for everyone.
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Take Howard County into the field
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