Mule deer South Dakota

[Twang10]

Buddy and I are doing spot and stalk in South Dakota this fall with our bows. Just wondering if anyone has any advice. Think we are gunna target the badlands area. Also do you have to pack out the entire deer I was told that today.


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[slick]

Search it. Been covered pretty good.

 

[Boxerboxer]

https://gfp.sd.gov/userdocs/docs/2018BigGameRegs.pdf

 

[jjwillie25]

Buddy and I are doing spot and stalk in South Dakota this fall with our bows. Just wondering if anyone has any advice. Think we are gunna target the badlands area. Also do you have to pack out the entire deer I was told that today.


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shoot me a text 717-215-1011. been out a couple times and could share a few things with ya
josh

 

[FTG52]

They changed the opener from Sept 1st to October 1st for non residents. Just a heads up in case you had an early season trip planned.

 

[KurtR]

Don’t have to pack out whole deer.

 

[CP6]

Been hunting it for years. The crowds have quadrupled or more in the last 2 years. Mostly out of state hunters. There are deer there, but every time we found deer last year, other hunters walked in on us (literally parked beside us and walked in on a few occasions) or would walk right through an area with deer and blow them out.

Not trying to be disparaging, it’s just getting really really crowded out there and from the number of threads I’m seeing on here, it’s gonna be worse this year.

Walking in won’t help you much, everyone walks nowadays and a lot of the bucks were on private land. I can say look for sections of land that are overlooked by most hunters and out of the “normal zone”.

Also, I spoke with a biologist who said the counties to the west are getting hit hard by CWD and it is spreading faster than they want to admit. Wall is about as far west as we have been going because of the crowds and CWD (seen it first hand).

 

[KurtR]

Amazing cwd has been around since the 60’s and now all of a sudden it’s a world ender.

 

[Ark_18]

A good friend of mine is now a resident there. This will be my first year there but his advice for me was most people dont hunt to hard there. Get off the path and youll find the deer.

 

[sdarcher]

A good friend of mine is now a resident there. This will be my first year there but his advice for me was most people dont hunt to hard there. Get off the path and youll find the deer.

Being a resident of SD I couldn't disagree more. There are a lot of residents that hunt hard! I always think i'm going to get away from everyone and it rarely works. I may be the first one there, but that doesn't mean someone else isn't going to be joining you. The one thing I saw a lot of last year was guys skylining themselves just walking around on ridge tops. I actually ran into more guys from out of state last year than I did residents.

good luck to the OP

 

[KurtR]

i don’t see much for residents out hiking and hunting . I had 0 people on the public areas with me last year because it is a mile walk till it even looks good

 

[sdarcher]

Some of it will depend on the county you hunt as well

 

[Keith Knudsen]

I grew up in SD and used to work for the GFP. I believe the game warden for the badlands area is still Jacob Hasz. Good guy he might be some help. Personally I would recommend the black hills. As long as its archery you can hunt there with a nonresident tag. Reply to this comment and we’ll figure out a way to get you some info.

 

[slick]

Not sure if Jacob is still in Wall area...My friend is the CO based out of Wall and covers the Badlands area, he’s only been in the position for a couple years, but has worked for GFP in western SoDak in other capacities. Good dude.

 

[Keith Knudsen]

Not sure if Jacob is still in Wall area...My friend is the CO based out of Wall and covers the Badlands area, he’s only been in the position for a couple years, but has worked for GFP in western SoDak in other capacities. Good dude.

Ya it’s been 2 years since I’ve been there. Looks like Jacob is now in Rapid. Which is still a good place to get ahold of him.

Below is link for CO by city/region. I’ve had good luck with them in the past giving out good info. I also know a couple of landowners north of wall that a guy could probably get some permission on.

Contact Us

gfp.sd.gov