Every year, smack dab in the middle of October, a half a dozen ACF members gather for the Fall Rendezvous in Houston, Missouri, the home of Ozark Mountain Outfitters. Jim and Darlene Wilson and son Eric play host to our group in some of the most beautiful deer and turkey country that America has to offer. The hunt allows the taking of a whitetail buck and doe as well as a wild turkey. The hunt this year was a three day hunt, but in 2010 it will be expanded to five full days of exciting hunting with toasty-warm hospitality, lots of great home-cooked food and plenty of wildlife being seen by all who are sent out to guard Jim’s lush food plots.

This year I was joined by ACF members, Jackie Seale of Alabama, Harold Webster of Mississippi, Bob Jacobs of Minnesota and Randy Archer of North Dakota for four days of what turned out to be wet and colder than normal weather. Still our dedicated hunters managed to drag six whitetails and one turkey to the meat pole. Harold Webster and Bob Jacobs each took two whitetails and Jackie and Randy each took one. The big bucks managed to evade the arrows on this go-round. Plenty were seen, but they were either out of range or else really lucky. The last night of the hunt, Bob had a really big buck grazing just fifteen yards from him, but behind some heavy brush. As the animal slowly began to move into the open, a herd of spooked whitetails sped by, taking Bob’s buck with them. And that, my friends, is why they call it hunting.

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