Black Hills/Kansas Turkey Trip

[sobry84]

For this spring some buddies and myself drew the Black Hills tag and also put in for North Central Kansas but have not drawn yet. Both states have been on our bucket list for a while. None of us have ever been to either area and was looking for some information on either area. We have primarily hunted the south east so both will be a very different experience than what we are used. We plan on hunting public ground in both areas. I would also like to hear some of yalls experiences and stories on hunting those areas or similar areas. Any info on either place would be greatly appreciated. Also feel free to PM me if you'd rather not share info on here publicly.

 

[Ondavirg]

Be prepared to cover a ton of ground in the Black Hills. We went last year and had some private to hunt as well but birds were scarce. It also snowed on us, so be prepared for all weather conditions. Looking back we spent too much time hunting spots where birds were last year, but were not currently. This is big, rough country that has birds but covering ground until you find them will be key to success.

 

[Kurts86]

Kansas is a shattered shell of what it was 10-15 years ago. I wouldn’t travel to hunt Kansas and my family did almost annually from the late 90’s to 2020’s. Turkey hunting in Kansas it’s heavily concentrated to Riparian corridors.

The Blackhills is just like Pine Ridge/ Eastern Wyoming/ Custer NF where you have to cover a lot of ground to find the birds before you start hunting. The turkeys tend to winter down low on ag and move up into the hills more as the season goes on. As mentioned snow can ruin entire weeks of hunting in April.