Black Hills Turkey Hunt - Turkey Hunting - Turkey Hunting

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I believe Joel might be a little too bit excited about deer season to check the turkey forum ! I am sure he will be able to help when he sees this. Good luck with planning your trip.

Not cool Todd.

I haven’t hunted the hills in a few years, but it’s a great destination no matter where you go out there. Most of the outfitted hunts are on private land, and the numbers of birds on some of these ranches gives them 80-100% success rates. It really is that good. Those were always too pricey for my blood, but well worth it if you’re short on time. Rolling in the lodging also helps alot.

For a do-it-yourself hunt, I’ve heard from other friends who go out there that getting on private land is much more difficult than it used to be. No problem there, as the public lands are aplenty. So start by obtaining a map of the National Forest lands out there. A good map. Online maps work well too. The premium there is miles away from the roads/access points, probably to no surprise. Birds out there see alot of pressure at popular/easy access points. You’re also going to want to weed out the rockier areas with lots of relief. Birds can roost around the edges of these areas, but you’re looking for more the undulating terrain and small rock bumps here and there (mountains for the midwest ) for habitat. At least that’s where we always did best.

Birds out there cover ground. You should too. GPS tracking surveys on birds out there found some groups and individual birds can roam as much as 16 miles a day. Hunt them off the roost, then get ready to give chase. Cover ground. It gets windy out there. Box calls are great for locating and prospecting for them when the wind howls. Not much gets them to gobble as well as a loud box call on some of those days.

Keep in mind you can get snows well into May out there. That shuts things down for a bit, but overall doesn’t bother the birds too much. It’ll definitely make your travel more limited in terms of how much terrain you can cover, and if you’re camping makes things a bit more uncomfortable as well. Everyone wants the April hunts out there, and the birds are a bit more active, but be watching those fronts to the west before heading out!

Hunt with a few buddies and split up. The problem with birds that roam like that is you can, at any one time, encounter incredible habitat that is completely devoid of turkeys. Exploring separately while hunting, then coming back to hunt the best stuff together has worked well for me in the past.

Plan for more than just a weekend. Those lightning hunts are awesome, but for a DIY hunt, you’ll really just starting to get things figured out by the 3rd day. That’s especially true if you’re with other people and have multiple tags to fill.

Keep in mind that there’s some great hunting 100 miles south of the hills in NE (over the counter tag), and IMO, even more untapped hunting in WY just across the border. I’ve only done it once, and no I was not married with kids yet, but we hit all three states in a week and took birds everywhere we went. Them was the days!

Joel