Don't let anyone tell you SD is a slam dunk, it is not. I have had one of the most challenging turkey seasons I've ever faced. I'm not sure if it just started or just ended.
Way back around Christmas I made my first turkey trip of the year, during our "fall" season, which begins in November, and ends January 31st. I took an entire week off from work to hunt the Black Hills. I went to an area I know there are turkeys, and then proceeded to drive hundreds of miles for days without laying eyes on one. I managed to find a few in one of the small town city limits. I hunted 1 mile out of city limits on some WIA land, and did not see any sign of turkey at all. On the last day I came around a corner on a dirt road, and wouldn't you know, there is a small flock of turkeys, and they are all big longbeards. I slammed on the brakes, got out of the car, and had a clear 60-70 yard shot at them, but I did not feel good with the handgun, and the rifle was in the back. After a couple seconds, they walked into the brush. I followed some tracks to a tree they had clearly roosted in before multiple times. I set up by it, and never saw anything. It wasn't all bad though, I got to see all but a couple of animals in the hills when I was there. I even got a chance to see a large herd of bighorn sheep, which I've talked to multiple people who lived in the hills for years and never saw one. I saw bison, elk, zillons of deer of course, tons of pronghorn. Basically all the big ones except mountain goat and cougar.
A couple weeks later I got one day off work. I work second shift, so that makes things interesting. Thursday night, midnight, I get off work, and hit the road. I just squeaked by one nasty ice storm. Sometime just before light, I come in close to where I found that roost tree. I set up near the tree, and never saw or heard anything. There was fresh snow, and I could see nothing had been back. I started hiking, managed to find a single set of old tracks. Saturday was no better. Sunday I randomly picked a very good looking spot. Again I saw nothing. This was a very strange day though. Picture this, end of January, in the mountains, and I'm out in a T shirt and I can hear Motorcycles blasting up the roads. It must have been 60 degrees out there that day. I packed up and went home. At home it was freezing cold.
I took a break for a few weeks after that. Once I got my edge back, I started scouting new spots. I got drawn for a tag in the NE part of the state. I made a few trips out, and noted likely spots. The NE part of the state (as well as SE ND, and west central MN) got hammered by snow like you would not believe. It has been years since I've seen that much snow. A lot of the best areas had snow you could not walk through without snow shoes 4' deep+, and the drifts were deeper yet. The turkey opener rolls around, and I hit target #1. It had been like another world out that way. Aberdeen has been reasonably warm, and the snow melted long ago. Then the turkey spot, less than 100 miles away, still had over a foot of crunchy snow. Worse, the weather was turning sour. It was quite cold, likely only 20 degree high. I did the best I could, covered many miles on foot, and never found turkey. Then Sunday things got worse. It started to downpour rain, yet I don't think it was over freezing. I had rain gear, but I got soaked to the bone. I sat in that until noon, and that was all I could take. That was one of the few days in my life I've been truly cold. This trip wasn't a waste though, since I located multiple turkey sign. Over the weekend I found a few foot prints, a few feathers, and a few locations with a ton of scratching.
As bad as that weather got, it was looking even worse later in the week. It rained or snowed there, probably both, every single day. Saturday was predicted even colder than the first weekend, and with snow. I decided to pull up, and see if I could get my dad on a turkey. It has been years since he has gone. On Friday night, midnight, I drove all the way to MN and got there around 4:30 am. We went to my old stompin grounds, and it was taken. I then checked my old plan B,C,D, and E. All taken. By this time the it was already starting to get light. I decided on a hail mary, and we set up in some woods that don't seem promising, but they seem to have a chance. Shortly after we hear yelping. I call back, and then I got a non-stop 5 minute+ barrage of yelp yelp yelp, cluck over and over like a recording. Someone else had walked into this little 5 acre chunk of woods and was calling to us. I don't know how they missed the truck parked there. It was fine though, there were no birds in there anyway. Sunday we did not even go out, since dad didn't want to go out in the cold again (this was day 5 for him).
This week looked ok back in SD at first. Then I started getting thunderstorm warnings. The forecast looked like a mistake it was so odd. Friday 40, Saturday 72 and severe thunderstorm, Sunday 32 and snow. Whatever was coming was going to be bad news. My plan was to get out Saturday morning, do what I could, then go home. As it turned out, Friday got hit by one bad last minute storm. When I got off work at midnight, I was checking for tornado warnings it was so nasty. The lightning out here is amazing. Unfortunately it was so bad I did not feel comfortable driving in it. At 1am it hadn't let up, it almost seemed worse, so I pulled the plug and went to bed. This morning it looked like nothing had happened. So I had some breakfast and drove out to my spot. Despite the forecast, there was no rain, it was blue sky. They were not wrong about the heat though. Remember, it has been 30's or 40's high for weeks now. Today I got to my spot about 2pm, and the thermometer said 71 degrees. I set up on a spot that had sign before, and it appeared to have fresh sign, possibly from the morning. The wind was howling, as it often is, so I couldn't hear anything. I just sat an cold called. Even sitting, I was sweating bad. Then all of a sudden the temp fell off the map. Over the course of an hour it went from 71 to around 48. Normally this would be bad, but it was about that time I heard yelping. Shortly after a hen came in to inspect the decoys. She walked of, and nothing followed. A short while later, another hen came from a different direction, and did not mind the decoys, but did not come in. Then it was an hour of nothing, and I was beginning to consider tomorrows game plan. Suddenly I heard a gobble, the first I've heard this year. A few minutes later I could see them. It wasn't just a tom. It wasn't just a flock. I could not count them all, but it was a minimum of 20 toms, and likely 30 hens. There were probably more I could not see. This was a plains super roost I've heard about. I've never witnessed anything like it. Once they got inside of 80 yards I could hear all the yelping and occasional gobble. It is a fantastic sight to behold. The wind was so bad, they could have been 100 yards away all day, and I never would have known. After doing my absolute best, I failed to get anything to care much about my calls, and there was no way they could see the decoys. The main problem is there is a creek down the center of a valley, and they were on the far side. All the hens seem to know where they wanted to go, and the toms just strutted along with them. It was getting later, and I figured they were heading to a roost. I knew the area. I made a split second decision to cut them off. Once I felt I was in the clear, I got up, leaving the decoys and chair, and then walked as fast as I could down the valley. Due to the terrain, I was able to cover a lot of ground that they could not. I popped in about 300 yards down, and slowly crept into a likely spot. Once set up, I called, and not long after two hens showed up. Eventually they saw me and bolted. After about 20 minutes I began to wonder if I had messed up. Not only the day, but I was worried I may have spooked 50 turkeys off a good roost on public land. I couldn't see how, as even a turkey couldn't have heard me 100 yards away in that crazy wind, and there was way too much brush to see me. It was now nearly dark, and looking at my phone, I had 1 minute of legal time left. Suddenly a gobble to my right. I did not move, and he came walking on in right by me. Once he was hidden by a tree, I raised the shotgun. He came out in the clear about 10 yards from me. I cocked the hammer, he stopped to look, and that was that.
The 1850's muzzleloader with #6 shot did it again. It should be no surprise though, since this could be the closest I have ever shot a tom. It isn't a monster, but an adult tom is an adult tom. His beard is a medicore 5 1/2" long. The real trophy is this is my first Rio Grande turkey. This is an area only Rio's were introduced, and as far as the N*** (the National Wild Turkey Federation is not a swear word) is concerned, this is pure Rio. The main differences I noticed is their gobbles are a little different. It could have been the wind, but they didn't seem super loud either. The other difference is the fan. The mid feathers on the fan have golden glowing tips. They look so cool, I wish they showed up in the picture. I'll post it side by side with an eastern fan on the wall. I'm as happy as can be. I sure hope the next one isn't this hard, I've had enough no-sleep-fridays for a while. It's crazy to think I just went through a severe thunderstorm, very hot 71 degrees, felt quite cold 40's, and then drove home in a sleet storm, all in a day.
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