SD Turkey Hunting

Kyle Hauck

Member
First off, sorry to Anthony Coons for the hijack on his thread so I started my own.....

So I love duck and goose hunting, but spring snow goose isn't my thing. I'd rather chase those big thunder chickens. It gets my blood pumping pretty good hearing those birds gobbling as they come to your decoys. Well in SD we are blessed with true Merriams and I love chasing these things in the spring. I haven't been at it very long. I actually guided turkey hunts for 3 seasons with a 100% success rate before I decided to shoot my own turkey, lol. Since day 1 I chased them with my bow, nothing else. No shotguns ever.

Well, we started this year hunting hard, hunted all day for archery opener with lots of birds and activity but couldn't close the deal. We hunted another 1/2 day with no success later in the week and then before we got a big storm we tried to chase them again all day. The birds were quiet, no response to hens, just focused on feeding before we would end up getting 20" of wet heavy spring snow.

Well, thing snow storm put a delay in my buddy Abraham's plane flight out of Ohare. Finally after over 30hrs of delays he made it to SD Friday early afternoon. After settling in and saying our pleasantries I told him we should get out and at least scout to roost a few birds. If we had the opportunity we would try to make a stalk or call. We headed out into the snow covered hills to check out some of my spots. It was quiet, really quiet. All the birds we saw were hanging out on private property. Now, turkeys are pretty opportunistic and in the Hills of SD this is especially true. We have a ton of WUI and the birds utilize these private parcels to strut, feed, and congregate in large groups in the winters.

Well, there was a large group of birds with a lot of toms and I knew they had been roosting on Forest Service land in the previous evenings before the snows and track coming off the hillside proved they had the night before too. I told him once we saw birds moving off of the private we needed to get up ahead of them. That is exactly what we did. They started moving and we drove down the road and started hiking in the FS property to get in front of them. Well it happened and the first bird presented itself. Normally I would have let my guest shoot first but he was at 36 yds out from the bird and I was 9, so I let her fly. Bird #1 on the ground.


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We made plans for the next day to move to a different less accessible area as it would be shotgun opener. Now I knew the snows would slow it down but I still thought I wanted to get farther off the beaten track. We stayed up into the wee hours of the morning sharing tales, sipping adult beverages, and making lots of goose jerky that night. The next morning we were a little late to get going and after stopping to grab the best donuts in the Black Hills we made it to our spot. The birds were already there.......moving down a closed FS fire trail. No time for decoys this morning not that they were responding anything in the snow anyways. We ducked down behind a big snow drift and put a turkey fan in front of us. I gave a few yelps and they were strutting down the trail. The trail was pretty open and they didn't want to get out in the deep stuff. They got in front of us, I ranged them at 32 and my buddy let an arrow fly, a little off but I thought it was still a deadly kill. We sat where we were for another 20 minutes hoping to get another tom in. I shot high at 28yrds (still kicking myself about that) I thought his bird was as good as dead so when we walked up to it it took off and flew and surprised both of us due to the amount of blood on the snow. I knew where the bird went as I had hunted here before and had a bird fly down that way. We decided to have a coffee break and let him sit for a little bit. I also knew where he had flown to was private. After getting permission we made our way around to come from the bottom up. Took a little bit but we located him and stalked up to 25 yds. My buddy asked if we should walk to him or shoot again. I told him you getting shoot again. He did and smoked him but that bird got up and flopped like he hadn't been hit at all before. Bird #2 and first Merriam for Abraham.


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That afternoon we took in the sights of the Hill and drove up to a hole in the wall burger place that is known for the best burgers in the AREA HANDS DOWN!

Now I knew that I had to leave at a decent time the next day to get to Saskatchewan for a week so if we hunted the next morning it would have to be a quick hunt. I had a piece of private property honey hole that I had been saving. This is where we would sit and it was a gorgeous morning!


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Like clockwork the birds starting talking early and often and were a lot more active than the birds less than 20 minutes away the day before. It didn't take long and they started filing past. I passed on a bunch of birds because they were a little farther out than I wanted and they were particularly interested in my decoy in spite of letting me know they liked my calling. Finally after almost all of the birds had gone up over the hill I was able to pull a single tom off of the hill opposite us. Again, he was white with hormones crazy but didn't want to come to the deep snow where my decoys were. I didn't have time to range as he moved around us. I guessed my 30 yd pin. I was a little bit high but after the flopping stopped I could see I had severed his spine clean in half with my rage broadheads. Bird #3 total and #2 for me this season.


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Overall, a very successful timeframe! 3 birds with bows in 36 hours.
 
Great write up Kyle.

Crazy to me that y'all hunt turkeys in the snow, I'm lucky to hunt ducks in the middle of winter in snow.
Congrats to both of y'all on the great adventures and bow kills, I hope to get a bow again and use it for turkeys and to one day make it out that way to hunt birds other than these eastern birds in N.C.

Beautiful birds.
 
benp said:
Great write up Kyle.

Crazy to me that y'all hunt turkeys in the snow, I'm lucky to hunt ducks in the middle of winter in snow.
Congrats to both of y'all on the great adventures and bow kills, I hope to get a bow again and use it for turkeys and to one day make it out that way to hunt birds other than these eastern birds in N.C.

Beautiful birds.

Come on up! I'll help anyone that wants information on killing a Merriam here in the Black Hills.
 
3 turkeys with a gun in 36 hours is braggin' rights but 3 with a bow is just downright crazy!
And in snow, that's just freakin' nuts!
 
Good job Kyle, congrats. I tried for years to take a turkey with my compound - unsuccessfully. Ten years ago I went back to traditional archery and have been attempting to take a turkey with my long bow and ghillie suit since then. Finally came together last year - twice. A tom in the spring and a hen in the fall. I may look you up in another year or two for some help with SD turkeys.
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Great stuff Kyle! We open Monday here in Maine and for that matter, most if not all of the New England states. Beautiful birds, on my to do list at some point. Thanks for posting.
 
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