Best Missouri Deer Counties per Square Mile: Jefferson Leads at 7.91

The best Missouri deer county per square mile is Jefferson, where hunters registered 7.91 deer on each square mile, averaged over the 2021-22 through 2025-26 seasons. Gasconade and Franklin follow at 7.25 each, and the top of the list bunches near St. Louis: eight of the ten leading counties lie within 100 miles of the city, against 26 of all 114 counties. That pattern is measured, and it fits hunter effort and access as much as it fits deer numbers, which registered harvest cannot tell apart.

Jefferson County's 7.91 puts it ahead of the next county by 0.66. Gasconade and Franklin both round to 7.25, and carried to three decimals they read 7.252 and 7.245, a gap of 0.007 that we treat as a tie for second. Lincoln (6.80), Pike (6.78) and Morgan (6.76) come next.

We built the rate from Missouri Department of Conservation county harvest tables for five seasons, averaged, and divided by each county's land area from the Census Bureau's boundary files. The twelve counties in the figure fit inside a band 1.52 wide, running from Jefferson down to a three-way tie at 6.39 (St. Francois, Montgomery and Osage). Against a state median of 4.44, Jefferson's rate is about 1.8 times that of the typical county.

Sort the same 114 counties by average registered deer instead, and the order changes. Franklin registers more deer than any other county, 6,684 a season, and lands third per square mile. Callaway is second by total (5,287) and 14th by rate at 6.33. Jefferson is third by total (5,188) and first by rate.

Eleven of the top 20 counties by rate also rank in the top 20 by total. The other nine rank 24th to 54th by total: Montgomery, Dallas, Perry, St. Francois, Ste. Genevieve, Warren, Ralls, Scotland and Hickory. Hickory averages 2,629 registered deer a season and Warren 2,825, yet they place eighth and seventh, because a modest count spread over little ground still produces a high rate. For the county that most often tops Missouri's raw totals, see our paper on the county that kills the most deer.

We measured how far each county sits from St. Louis, as straight-line miles from the county's Census centroid to the centroid of St. Louis City. For the ten leading counties the distances run Jefferson 30, Franklin 47, Lincoln 48, Warren 50, St. Francois 58, Perry 68, Gasconade 70, Pike 70, Morgan 143 and Hickory 174. Eight of the ten are within 100 miles. Across all 114 counties only 26 are, about 23% of them, so 80% of the top ten come from a 100-mile circle that holds 23% of the counties.

The top 20 tell the same story in a single number. Their median distance from St. Louis is 79 miles, and the median for all counties is 157, so the middle county of the top 20 is about half as far from the city as the middle county overall.

The distances show where the high rates fall on the map and leave the reason open. One reading is that a large city puts many hunters within a short drive of nearby counties, so those counties register more kills for their size because more people reach them and more of those people can get onto land. Another reading is that those counties hold more deer for each square mile. Registered harvest cannot separate the two. Every deer in the count needed a hunter with a place to hunt as well as a deer, and the harvest counts we used say nothing about how many hunters were afield or how much land was open to them. We measured distance to one city and tested no other factor, so we cannot say the same pattern holds around Kansas City or anywhere else.

Two members of the top ten, Morgan at 143 miles and Hickory at 174, sit well outside the 100-mile circle, so distance is a tendency in this list with exceptions. Tree cover is another factor that could line up with these rates, and our forest-cover study examined it across five Midwest states, Missouri among them.

Pemiscot County closes the list at 0.39, from 193 registered deer in an average season. New Madrid (0.53), Mississippi (0.68) and Dunklin (0.91) are the next lowest, and Atchison, fifth from the bottom, registers 1.00. Jefferson's rate is about 20 times Pemiscot's. With the median at 4.44, half of it is 2.22, and nine of the ten lowest counties fall under that line. Clinton, at 2.24, sits just above it.

Nodaway, in the table below, registered the most deer of the ten (1,518 a season) but spreads them over enough ground to rank 109th at 1.73.

A low rate can mean few deer, few hunters, little land open to hunting or permit rules that limit the kill. The counts cannot say which applies to any one county.

The counts cover all 114 counties for the 2021-22 through 2025-26 seasons. The county rows for the last two seasons add up to MDC's published Grand Total, 275,656 in 2024-25 and 301,125 in 2025-26. Land area is the Census land measure, which excludes lakes and rivers, and St. Louis City is left out of the ranking. We averaged five seasons so that no single year could set a county's place. Five seasons let us describe recent years and give us no basis for calling a trend.

Harvest per square mile reflects hunter effort, access and permits as well as deer numbers, so it is not a population estimate. Jefferson's first place means hunters registered the most deer on its ground, and the counts cannot say whether that reflects more deer, more hunters or easier access to land. Only MDC's harvest counts and Census land area went into the rates, with no hunter counts, land-access data or deer surveys, and they rank Missouri counties against one another.

We believe this list is best used to find where registered kills concentrate, so ask about hunters and ground before you read a high rate as a high deer count. Pick two or three counties from the top 20 that you can reach, then find out how much land is open to you and how many others hunt it. A high rate can mean crowded ground as easily as plentiful deer.

If you live near St. Louis, eight of the top ten counties are within 100 miles of the city, and who else hunts them is the question to ask first. If you would travel farther, Morgan and Hickory are the two leading counties outside the 100-mile circle, and the table shows that the 20th county, Ste. Genevieve at 5.69, still registered more per square mile than the 4.44 median. The bottom ten make sense only when something other than the count draws you there.