Does anyone have any recomendations for hunting mule deer in South Dakota. Never done it before and was looking for any info. Stuff like where in the state is the best area, best time to go out there and do you use ground blinds or stalk them. Any info would be great, thanks.
I would look in to the black hills area. Around Sturgis and east to Rapid City. Good bucks through there. I would plan on doing a little of both but spot and stalk has been the most productive for me. Plan on being in good shape and get some good optics (spotting scope, binos, rangefinder). Plan on longer shots as well. Chances are you won't shoot any closer than 40 yards. I have only hunted the Wyoming side of the black hills but did alot of fishing on both sides and there's alot of deer all over. Early to mid september is normally a pretty productive time. Not sure when the archery hunt is in SD though. Were you planning on doing a DIY or use an outfitter?
I was going to do it on my own. I have hunted turkeys in the black hills before and when I was out there I seen alot of deer. I was up by Deadwood.
I went on a DIY for mulies near Chamberlain. I wasn't hunting, just tagging along with a buddy. We were on private land, and we saw some trophy bucks, but couldn't get within range. It's tough getting them to even 50 yards!
There is a lot of public ground in western South Dakota. The S.D. Game, Fish & Parks had a feature on their website last year that allowed you to download maps of all the public ground onto a memory card to be used in a GPS. This is nice because none of the school grounds and some of the BLM grounds aren't posted. Northwest S.D. experienced massive winterkills in '08/'09. We hunted antelope in Harding County last year, and though we did see a couple really nice mulies, they were few and far between. Good luck!
