Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk ALTurkey Talk -- Beards and Spurs SD and NE trip 2025

Got back Monday evening from some great times out west. Only regret I have is not doing that more often. The scenery is beautiful, people are welcoming and the hunting is fun. It’s a welcome experience after chasing these SE forest birds. We started in NE hunting public land, and although we found birds a plenty, they were always henned up and not very responsive to calling. We walked just shy of 40 miles in 4 days of hunting. We had some very close encounters (within 60-70 yards) but never closed a hunt with a shot fired. I think another day or two of hunting and we’d have likely killed a couple of birds. We were just figuring them out when we were told to get to SD quick to hunt some birds of known location on private land. So north we went. Here are pics of some of the things we saw in NE.






We showed up in SD to an area around the Badlands at 3:30 pm. First bird went down around 7:00 that evening. There were 3 of us hunting, and all of us had birds very close that afternoon. The following morning Jerremy and I doubled on two Merriams. Was an incredible hunt. We called in a flock of birds with several gobblers and put two down fairly quickly.








We immediately headed back to NE for private land, and I struck a bird from camp as we were unloading the truck. I went after him, and had him dead to rights if I hadn’t misjudged the distance. He escaped seemingly unharmed, and I’m thankful for that. A few minutes later I located another bird, stuck with him until roost time, and decided to get in tight the next morning. I learned that Matt and Jerremy doubled while I was hunting solo. I got in early and tight the next morning, and to make a 15.5 hour hunt short for times sake, I hung with this bird all day, and finally called him off the hens at 8:23 PM. That’s the first time I hung with a bird a full day from fly down to just a few minutes prior to the close of legal shooting hours. It was worth the wait, as he was a big old stud daddy.






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