Western SD antelope

[perchman4]

I am planning on going on an archery antelope hunt this fall. I have been looking at the sdgfp website and checking out the harvest maps and density maps and have narrowed my areas to Butte County and Harding County. I'm leaning more towards Butte County because it looks like it might receive a little less pressure then Harding County. I've heard about some places receiving quite a bit of snow out west and was wondering how the winter has been in these areas. I know that antelope are suspect to winter kill and am hoping that the numbers don't take a huge hit. Also, I see there is quite a bit of BLM land in Butte County and was thinking about just pulling a pop up camper and camping on BLM ground. Are there any areas where I could do this?

 

[Retterath]

I was just out there yesterday in perkins county which is just east of harding and I didn't see much antelope. The winter wasn't very good over here this year and I usually see a lot more but they could have just been over the next ridge. The snow Is about all gone out there right now and they have plenty of food now to get to. Call the local game warden out there and see what he says. Give this biologist a call Keith Mutschler 605.391.7364 He might be able to help you out a little better. Good luck

 

[jmez]

We've had a bad winter temp wise but the snow hasn't been horrible. Antelope moved off of the prairie and onto ag fields this winter like I've never seen. There were pivots that had 3-400 goats on them. Don't think they winter killed too bad, yet.

I say yet as we generally get a lot of snow in March and April and those storms can be pretty hard on them. Likely won't know until end of May how the over all winter kill was. Not sure about the camping. Call the Belle Fourche BLM field office and ask them about camping.

 

[perchman4]

Thanks for the info. I will have to call the BLM office and the biologist but I might just wait till after April since we could still get some bad storms yet.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

 

[Skyhigh]

I worked up in Harding all last summer and will be up there this fall to hunt. Send me a pm if you feel like it.

 

[KurtR]

If we would not have had this last little warm up we would have had huge die offs. The deer and goats were about to really start tipping over. we had lots and lots of snow and the rain that froze the ground before the snow on christmas eve was the real killer. I work with a guy whose in laws ranch in harding county on the state line and they have found a fair amount of dead critters

 

[NYSKIER]

Perchman, I'm looking to take a DIY trip somewhere in South Dakota as well this year. Let me know if you hear back at all regarding winter kill. Spoke with a CO in Fall River and he told me the winter was tough there but he thinks there won't be much if any winter kill. Only thing is said that I didn't like was that he said the past couple of years Fall River has been swa