South Dakota - Muleys & Pronghorn

[cycloneshooter]

Anybody have advise on places to go in South Dakota to hunt deer or antelope? Not expecting you all to give away your secrets, just looking for a general starting spot. Always looking for new and different hunting opportunities and this is a little closer to home. Been doing some research online, and SD does look interesting. I have a lead in progress that may or may not turn out to be anything, I would only call it 50/50 at this point.

Doesn't look like a ton of public land, other than maybe the Black Hills forest or the SW grassland areas. Is hunting access primarily a private land permission deal in SD?

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

[NDHunter]

There is a lot of good info the SD website. They have an interactive planner on there that shows all the public land and also the private land that is enrolled in their walk in areas. There are some big blocks of private that are enrolled in the northwest part of the state.

Overall, I'd say there is plenty of land to hunt there. I haven't personally hunted there yet but have done a lot of research and have been buying points for a few years.

 

[kesand72]

I thought South Dakota stopped issueing antelope tags to nonresidents because of the die offs? I could be wrong.

 

[NDHunter]

I thought South Dakota stopped issueing antelope tags to nonresidents because of the die offs? I could be wrong.

They did for a year or two but now they're issuing them again. Only a few per unit though.

 

[kesand72]

Good to hear they must be recovering well!

 

[chopperz]

im from sd born and raised. hunted there all my life.. anybody can get lucky and shoot a stud but chances are slim. If your looking for a trophy then your best option is to find private land.. if you just want a meat hunt public is ok.. I have hunted a lot of public and the bad thing about sd is that the state issues way to many tags per unit in my opinion so the first opening weekend everybody hunts the public land and when all the deer are gone they go hunt their own private land. the hills unit can be a fun hunt if you get back off the roads but hard to draw.....

 

[mnhoundman]

Also if have a smart phone go to the play store and type in south dakota game and fish and parks, something like that anyway. It's a free app and it has a map on it that shows public land, it's pretty cool.

 

[tdcour]

Public is hunted pretty hard, but there are good deer to be found. Most guys don't even get out of their truck, so if you find a big spot of public you can get into some deer for sure. Opening weekend of rifle is nuts though for sure. The deer from my profile pictures are from sd.