Black hills draw

[slave601]

I don't have social media so I may have been late on knowing this but I just received an email that the black hills area of South Dakota is draw hunt for non residents now.

[deerhunt1988]

Check out the NR hunter growth. Doubled in 5 years.

2018: 1,545
2019: 1,604
2020: 1,381
2021: 2,718
2022: 2,346
2023: 2,674
2024: 3,170


Pretty amazing how COVID caused everyone to start traveling to specific locales to hunt.

Haha, just kidding. IF YOU PIMP IT, THEY WILL COME.

[deerhunt1988]

You can expect Wyoming to make changes for their Black Hills turkey region next. And don't be surprised if there is eventually a ~$400-500 "Special" Black Hills turkey tag there. They recently drastically upped the price on "special" tags for big game animals. ($2,000 elk tag, $1,200 antelope and deer tags)
A "Special" tag is basically the exact same as a "normal" tag, you just pay a lot more to increase your draw odds.

[eggshell]

The Black Hills are not the turkey hunt that it used to be. It can be very hit or miss. Making it a premium hunt will make it a no go for me. I have family and friend there and usually make at least one trip a year to the area, but the gun will stay home if they make it too difficult and pricey. I have traveled and hunted 9 states over the last 50 plus years and SD Black Hills is very low on my list of places to return to. If you have access to private land and set up in close proximity to a locals feeders your golden, but hunting the hills at large sucks. Everyone has a back yard or field feeder and high pressure on public lands have pushed the birds into safe zones. You can drive a 100 miles in a day and never hear a bird on the Remote areas of National Forest. On the way home you may see a couple flocks in people's yards or a private pasture. I'm sure someone will dispute this, but that is what I have seen happen in the last few years. Most of those videos are older and I watched a couple videos that I could see homes and hear traffic very close....yup makes me wonder if those were yard birds. I'm not buying.

[GobbleNut]

Yep, everything eggshell states is exactly what we saw several years ago when we went.  We never heard or saw a turkey EXCEPT either on, or very close to, private land. On almost every occasion we encountered turkeys, we were invariably trying to pull them off of those private holdings...and those private landowners seemed to be doing everything they could to keep those turkeys on their properties. ...And for me personally, I don't enjoy hunting turkeys in those types of situations, and especially for turkeys that are human-conditioned enough where they just hang around people's homes, often while those folks are out doing "human stuff" amongst them. 

After all we had heard about hunting there, we were absolutely shocked at the apparent absence of turkeys anywhere except around those private lands...and there are lots of private-land holdings within that forest, and with correspondingly LOTS of folks doing other stuff that complicate hunting for turkeys. 

Now, I'm sure there are exceptions to the above, and I'm also sure there are people that know the Hills well enough that they know where those exceptions are.  However, let this be a warning to those that might decide to travel there to hunt and might be assuming that they will easily find gobblers to hunt: despite the mental image you might have that the Black Hills are Merriam's-turkey-hunting utopia for public-lands hunters, from what we saw, it is far from it (and that Pine Ridge area of Nebraska falls into the same category at this point).

[deathfoot]

I'm not surprised. So maybe I'll give it a few years and go back. I absolutely love the Black Hills, both for turkey hunting and vacation. However, my last trip to the Black Hills of Wyoming was frustrating. While I was on a group of birds, hunters were everywhere. I talked to a local and he had never seen it like that before. I swore I would never go back turkey hunting there. But now maybe I will in a few years if the turkey population increases the hunters decrease.

[WV Flopper]

It's a 24 hour drive for me to get there, I am not going to even plain to go back. Only for that reason.

Between ND, SD and WY I hunted a total of 5 days. I harvested 4 turkeys this past spring. No guide, DYI by myself.

There are turkeys in those hills, plenty of them. The one day I was unsuccessful was in WY, I was on turkeys that day. Mistakes made by me dictated that days hunt.

I did not have issues with any other hunters in any of those states, or non hunters.

I heard multiple birds in all three states. Spring 2024

[eggshell]

I think it should be mentioned that there's a difference in the North unit and the south. Most people hunt the south, but I have heard there's more birds in the north. The problem with the north is the public land is more broken up and not marked. A lot of small BLM units, you have to do your homework or have a guide/local contact if you go full DIY for your first trip. This is only my observation, feel free to correct me if I am in error. WV Flopper, I assume you were hunting Northern SD. I was out there in September and was in Northern SD and southern ND and saw way more birds than in the southern black hills.

[WV Flopper]

No disrespect. I will only say BH unit 1 and obviously Indian territory in ND.

If you would like to discuss further shoot me a PM

[Gooserbat]

Did anyone really expect this to not eventually happen.

[Bolandstrutters]

Black Hills has always been a draw, but the draw rate has always been 100%.

[arkrem870]

We all must sacrifice so a few can have their 15 mins. Disagree with their loose lip policies and you are......... THE SELFISH ONE

[Paulmyr]

Must have been all them come turkey hunting in Nebraska billboards I seen dotted all over the upper Midwest starting around 2015? Don't remember exactly when I started seeing them but I did see a few of them precovid.

[Shiloh]

Arkrem,

I have talked to DH88 about this, and I am curious to know your thoughts.  Knowing that these guys aren't going away anytime soon, what would you ask them to do differently?  Mainly the social media/youtube guys.

[joey46]

the social media Youtubers are here to stay.  ADAPT or stay home. Simple as that.