John Mueller

Missouri

Veteran Hunter

John Mueller started hunting as a boy on his family's property, starting with a gun and eventually moving to a bow. His dream of having some land of his own was sadly delayed by the illness and passing of his wife. With her blessing, he's now found a place and is in the process of transforming it into a deer hunting paradise in western Illinois. John also enjoys faraway hunting and fishing trips for antelope, bear, elk, salmon and halibut.

Read John's Field Journals...

John was never much of a hunter, but his two uncles who lived on either side of him liked to hunt. He used to go rabbit and squirrel hunting with them on his grandma’s property, and when he was old enough to go alone, he would ride along with dad to his farm. While he would do the farm work John would head to the woods hunting for whatever game in season at the time or just shoot some groundhogs.

John was 15 when we found the first deer tracks on his dads place. John told his dad that he wanted to try and hunt them, but it was too late to get tags that year. So after reading magazines for the next year about deer hunting, John knew enough to give it a shot, so he got a shotgun tag and went deer hunting on the farm. John killed a button buck on the 3rd day of the season and has been hooked forever.

John ended up taking a deer almost every year on dad’s farm. When John moved his family to his 3 acres away from the subdivisions, he had deer running around everywhere. He decided to take up bow hunting around home and after getting access to a few small tracts of land, his addiction was born. After a couple of years of bow hunting and some success John gave up gun hunting for deer altogether, he was having too much fun chasing them with his bow.

Next in line was getting some property of his own. So it became a dream of their family to own some property in the country. They started saving a little and there and putting it in a special account.

Things went on hold in October of 2006 when John’s wife was diagnosed with Leukemia. They tried a stem cell transplant but it was not a success. Sadly, she lost her yearlong battle on Halloween last year. Knowing how much it meant to John, his wife told him make sure he had enough for his daughters’ college education and use the rest of the money from the Life Insurance Policy to buy some property.

John found 84 acres near where he had been hunting in Illinois since 1996. He made the owner an offer and now is in the process of making this a deer hunting paradise. It is in an awesome whitetail hunting area in Jersey County, Illinois.

In addition to hunting locally John tries to take a big hunting trip every few years. So far he has been to Wyoming for antelope, Alberta for black bear, New Mexico for elk, and on a fishing trip to Alaska for salmon and halibut.