Poplar Bluff High School senior Austin Stoner has been on a roll lately, earning some prestigious honors and wins in trapshooting.
For the second consecutive year, Stoner has been named an Amateur Trapshooting Association All-American.
Stoner, who shoots for the high school team, is the first ever student from the school to receive All-American honors twice.
At the state shot in the spring, Stoner was one of five junior-class shooters named to the All-State team.
Over the summer, Stoner competed in the New Mexico, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas state shoots, plus the Cardinal Classic in Ohio, the US Open at Linn Creek, Missouri, and The Grand at Sparta, Illinois.
At The Grand in Sparta, Stoner was one of three shooters from Missouri to make the National Team Race.
At the Scholastic Clay Target Program Nationals in Ohio, Stoner was named to the All-Scholastic Team for the third consecutive year, and he won a scholarship at the AIM Grand.
According to his records, Stoner shot 6,300 singles, 5,400 handicaps and 4,500 doubles clay birds this year.
And, last weekend, Stoner won the first Missouri Trap Association MYSSA Fall Classic High School Open sporting clays competition.
At the MYSSA Fall Classic trap event at Linn Creek last weekend, members of the SEMO Youth Shooters team earned several awards.
Madison Cash took first place in the ladies division, while Abby Prewitt took fifth place.
Logan Hart grabbed the fifth spot in the high school division, and Noah Innes earned fourth place in the junior high division.
The junior high squad of Innes, James Gambill, Jack Wesemann, Cody Grove and Truston Alexander earned the win in its division.
The senior high school squad also won its division with members Hart, Cooper Rideout, Cash, Anthony Cason and Sam Johnson.
Taking second place in the club division was the squad of Garret Cooper, Jaydon Everts, Prewitt, Trenton Patterson and Cole VanMatre.
During the event, Gambill earned his first 25-straight patch, while Innes received his 50-straight patch.
The team will host an exhibition shoot Oct. 23 at the Poplar Bluff Gun Club. Any youths from fourth grade through college are welcome to come check them out and sign up for next year.
Missouri’s archery deer harvest continues to lag behind last year’s, with a lot of counties in the region at less than half the take of the previous season.
A lot of people have said they haven’t seen any deer movement, and that can pretty much be attributed to the continuing heat and the acorn crisp.
The bumper crop of acorns also means deer aren’t having to move far to feed, and hunters focusing their efforts around fields just aren’t going to see much.
As of Wednesday morning, 10,936 deer have been arrowed statewide, down from 16,849 over the same period last year.
In Butler County, 62 deer have been tagged, down from 214.
In Carter County, the tally sits at 135 deer, down from 201.
Dunklin County bowhunters have taken 14 deer, down from 22 last year.
In Reynolds County, 141 deer have been arrowed, down from 218.
Ripley County bowhunters have managed to take 95 deer to this point, down from 195 a year ago.
Stoddard County hunters have tagged 113 deer, down from 195.
Wayne County still leads the region with 161 deer taken so far, but that pales in comparison to last year’s 393 at the same point in the season.
The weather change coming this weekend hopefully will spur some better deer movement, but it’s not like they are laying low.
Last Saturday morning, I saw three bucks, including two nice 8-pointers, plus some does. The biggest buck was walking through the woods grunting continuously, and he came straight to my grunt calls. Unfortunately, even at 20 yards, I never got a clear shot at him.
The next morning, in the same tree, I had another 8-pointer standing 3 feet from the base of my tree.
It was just getting shooting light and I poured out a few drops of buck urine on the ground below my stand. I settled in and wasn’t paying much attention to anything when I heard the sound of a nose sniffling behind me, like you do when your sinuses are stopped up. I looked around and the buck was already within 15 yards.
He caught me sitting down, so I could only sit and watch between my feet as he sniffed the ground, 3 feet away from the tree.
He eventually looked up and saw the fat guy in the tree and walked off, not really spooked too badly.
A bit later, two does came toward me before one spotted me and snorted. She came back twice to 20 yards and paid the price for her mistake, and now she resides in my freezer.
Missouri’s archery elk season opens Saturday and runs through Oct. 24, but given there were only five permits available, you won’t see any increase in hunter pressure if you’re in Carter, Reynolds or Shannon counties.
The state’s inaugural black bear season opens Monday, with 400 permits available across three different zones. In total, the statewide harvest quota is 40 bears, including 15 in Zone 2, which includes all of Southeast Missouri.
Paul Davis is the outdoors editor for the Daily American Republic and can be reached at pdavis.dar@gmail.com