Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Hunting the Dakota's?

lies all lies.

we have no good deer in SD, try ND first. I bet the ones you saw were a fluke.

in all seriousness there are some good deer if you know where to look. SD has unlimited archery tags for NR hunters. we also have the opportunity to get multiple tags for firearms if you know what you're doing. This makes SD appealing to NR hunters. The problem is when folks hunt all season for a big one, then on the last day shoot the biggest they see because they have to go home with antlers to make the trip "out west" worth it. I wish they'd just take a doe and let some of these juvenile bucks get some age to them. another thing that happens is people from brown it's down areas come out and see lots of branch antlered deer and think they found deer mecca. then bring a load of guys out the next year and they all go home with 100" deer. the state of SD is looking at greatly reducing NR tags for these reasons. people have complained and the state is listening to them. *rant off*

if you're looking for nice mulies and decide on SD I'd first look into the Missouri river breaks. as was said above, black hills tags and many WR units (rifle) are tough to draw. the state has some nice ones on the larger grasslands, but hunting is tough.

here's a good idea of what you can find without too much work. not huge but has a nice frame to him


it may take years of hunting to get on a good buck, the days of drawing a tag, coming out and shooting a 160"+ mulie on your first hunt are about impossible.