Gannett Ridge Goes to the Hills
Few things indicate the arrival of spring to me like the gobbles of mountain merriam turkeys echoing through the valleys. The pursuit of turkeys is great in itself and as a warm up for elk season. When mating turkeys display much of the same behavior as a herd of fired up elk. The great thing about turkeys in comparison to elk is that they are generally easier to get to, generally…..
Our adventure began with a 5 hour drive from rainy Fort Collins, CO to snowy and windy Hill City, SD located in the heart of the Black Hills for the Black Hills gun season. After a few thick patches of fog and some slow going due to slippery roads we made our destination for the night at 2 AM in the middle of a snowstorm. The things grown men will do to chase animals still astounds me every now and then. However passion is passion and it is best not to fight it.
After a 3 hour nap we picked ourselves up and headed out for the first morning of action. Or should I say lack thereof. With 4 inches of fresh snow and 25 mph winds day one was a bit anticlimactic, other than getting the truck stuck for about 30 minutes and seeing an incredible amount of deer and elk. The turkeys were where they should have been, roosted. The way we saw it day one was for getting the lay of the land and figuring out some places that we may want to key in on later in the hunt. Besides it felt good the get out and put a few miles on the boots and see how the Sitka gear handled the poor weather. Both kept me warm and dry even when floundering in the snow and mud pushing Tyler’s pickup out of the interesting route that he took around a snow drift.
As the day wore on the weather improved a bit and we started to see a few turkeys milling around on different pieces of private ground that we did not have access to. Even though we could not walk in and set up on a creek bottom, the great thing about the Black Hills is that most private ground is surrounded by public and you can work turkeys off the private ranches from the surrounding mountains around them. This exact situation presented itself about an hour before dark that day and we found ourselves hiking to the top of a ridge to get around a group of turkeys with one old long beard heading to its summit to roost. We reached the spot we wanted to get to, set up the decoys and dug ourselves in for ambush. A few minutes and a couple of light calls from the HS Strut diaphragm we began to see the heads of hens poking over a ridge line heading directly for us. Our excitement began to build as they closed the distance. When all the turkeys were in view, there was only one thing missing, that big old Tom. That sneaky bugger had skirted us by heading up a drainage out of sight until the group had moved 100 yards off. We ended the night disappointed about our blown opportunity but were able to locate a few groups of turkeys on the roost to work the next day.
Day 2 began after a much needed good night sleep and us setting up on the wrong side of some roosting birds and totally getting schooled, it happens…… After that we moved to another place we had located some birds. We hiked about a mile and half in and set up in a location out ahead of a group of about 25 birds that were scratching around in the midday sun. Despite our best efforts we could not drag a gobbler out of the group and we got pinned down between an open hillside and a private posted land line. After that the most action we saw that day was a picture sent by Tyler’s in-laws to his phone of a pretty nice gobbler eating corn off of their patio. Not quite what we were looking for but the picture still drew a few laughs.
At the end of that day we ran into some local hunters that had already tagged out and were willing to share a few ideas on where we could try to find more birds. I do love lucky breaks and will shamelessly accept any that come across my plate. Armed with some local knowledge we went to bed feeling good about what our third and final day could bring.
That morning did not disappoint upon getting into the area early we instantly located a group of roosted turkeys with several gobblers in the flock. We did some calling but the birds had other plans in mind and moved off to a preprogrammed feeding area. When you’re in a new area hunting anything you are bound to be in the wrong place more than you are in the right one. The important thing is to stick with it keep working and eventually you usually get a break, that afternoon we got ours. After working in close to a large group of birds we sat down and settled in for the long haul of waiting them out in between where they were and where we thought they would go. We were there about 3 hours when something spooked the flock and they turned tail and essentially charged us, like I said lucky breaks. Within seconds 40 turkeys were running past us full speed at about 10 yards, I couldn’t help thinking how similar it looked to a group of charging raptors from a scene out of Jurassic; Turkeys can sure cover some ground when they need to. Looking for red heads and beards one of those turkeys wasn’t quite fast enough and Tyler was able to put the bead on a Jake and turned loose a load of number 4 that instantly brought the turkey to a halt. While not conventional we were glad to have one tag filled and the second half of the day in a target rich environment.
Optimism is great but what happened next can best be described as a death march. We struck out in the direction the turkeys had gone and where we suspected other groups of birds to be. This path lead us through miles of mountain terrain, up and down several drainages and ridges. I was glad to have my Elberlestock A1 X1. As the miles passed and prospects grew thin until just before the end of shooting light we came over a rise to hear three gobblers sounding off and heading to roost for the night. Essentially running down one hill and up another we were able to intercept the birds on their way to their roost tree. Moments later we saw the birds. I picked out the one I wanted, a full fan Tom with a 9” beard and let him have it. The turkey instantly dropped and our Black Hills turkey hunt came to a close minutes before the end of our last day.
On our trip back we commented on how crazy and unorthodox our hunt had been and while not the most textbook, it had more than a fair share of excitement and challenge. Hunting public land turkeys in the mountains is a really different experience than most other turkey hunts but well worth the effort it takes to be successful.
