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South Dakota

5K views 17 replies 11 participants last post by  Empty Quiver 
#1 ·
Leaving Thursday for a road trip out west gonna hit the Fort Pierre National Grass Lands for a couple of days to shoot some PD gonna try some of the towns I shot on last time was 2012. Season used to open on the 15th of June until 2013 they opened it up that yr to year round so I don't know what to expect used to be lots of dogs before that as the locals could not shoot til June 15. My wife has never been west of the Mississippi so we are gonna shoot some dogs fish some of the Prairie pot hole ponds. Then head to all the areas in and around Yellowstone I did all of the Yellowstone stuff with my family when I was about 10-11 yrs old. So it should be quite a fun time for the both of us. Kurt
 
#2 ·
I have been W of the Mississippi, but never to shoot anything, much less PD's. I can think of no better rifle than a hyper-accurate Handi- single shot, with perhaps a bull barrel. Now what caliber? 243 is decent - but maybe overkill. 223 maybe? Speed, distance, accuracy, bullet performance, cost effective, ease of reloading, fine optics, rock steady rest, target rich environment, agreeable land owner, what could be more practical and fun than that? Do you keep score? Or just vaporize the little varmints? At what ranges? Maybe some day after conversion to every day is a weekend...a Yellowstone trip sounds like a deal maker! Any concern for travel with firearms through the midlands and South Dakota?
 
#6 ·
Overkill??? A 55 BT .243 will pop the little buggers right out of their hide and it will come fluttering back down. Saw that happen on the Rosebud in South Dakota.

300 yard shots quickly became boring with the Savage 110FP in .223 Rem. Boom, splat. Boom, splat. We also brought .22lr to get the close ones and soon found ourselves seeing how far we could stretch single shot hits with the .22. Farthest was a lasered 174 yards. Decent poke with the high winds out there.
 
#4 ·
Well my favorite Handi is my 204 Ruger topped with a 3-12x40 Leopold out to 350yrds it's money . With the 204 you can see the red mist and here them pop as the recoil is very low. I have been trying to get the 1000 yarder but you have to have so many things
happen right 1st ya got to have no wind and you have to have the shot and there just are not that many chances farthest to date for me is I think 748 and I thought that one was over 1000 . Really never kept count but have shot over 2000 round over 4 days before.
Guns I usually take are:
204 Ruger
22-250AI H&R
.223 H&R
22-250AI Savage w/26"bull bbl on a McMillan stock weighs about 13#'s 6-18x50 Leopold
This time I am taking my Smith&Wesson AR15-22 to shoot the close in dogs rather than burning up the more expensive ammo. At this point if I shoot one at 1000 it will be more luck than anything else. I just don't have any place to practice the long range shots. I will submit a report on my return.Kurt
 
#5 ·
Do NOT miss Custer State Park in the Black Hills. You'll see far more wildlife than you will in Yellowstone Park. Unless you are driving a motor home, I strongly suggest driving through Needles Highway and Pigtail Bridges.

Across the line is Devil's Tower in north-east Wyoming. I shot my first bull elk about 15 miles from this landmark.

TR
 
#7 ·
My deer hunting partner always shot a SAKO Forester 243 loaded up in heavy for caliber bullets (Nosler Partitions I think) so as not to maim deer or hogs. He had lower weight varmint loads as well, though I do not know either end of his spectrum in that caliber.


I obviously do not know the 243, but now own three of them (incl. the Forester), for which I have all of the reloading "trimmings", but never shoot. Perhaps I should, but there are no PD's in Florida. The ground water table is just too high for the little beggars. If it was not already illegal, we would probably have irradiated the American Alligator in FL much the same way as PD's.
 
#8 ·
The .243 can be a flat shooter for quite a good distance with the lighter pills. Would make a dandy head-shooter rig for those piggies you have down there. :)
 
#9 ·
Well all I got to say is wow wow wow what a fiasco. Got to Fort Pierre wife did very good driving her I just bought Audi A3 704 miles door to door almost 12hrs . Hit the prairie bought the crack of 12:30 only PD left in what used to be a fantastic field was also filled w/beef so we hit a couple of large ponds in another field a cought quite a few perch and blue gills with the fly rods and made a pretty good day of it. Next morning we checked out 12-15 other fields that I had marked on my map from previous trips no dogs found so we went to The cattlemen's supper club that has the best steaks that I've ever had...my 3rd time there and is a place you got to find if ever in Pierre SD. Next day headed for the Black Hills and Wall Drug got about 65 miles away from Pierre and all the action starts... the car quits got ahold of a tow truck who took us to a little town that had a Ford dealership of course its afternoon on sat. so they don't open again to monday morning luckly they had a nice hotel in town a mom and pop place that was fairly new...no restaurants no bar and grill nothing except a little corner general store able to get some food for weekend of doing nothing. 1st tow $250 got the car in dealership Monday morn they had nobody that had ever seen an Audi but were able to run codes and kind of figured it had something to do with the timing belt. But there is a Audi dealership 400mi back to Sioux Falls SD same tow driver will get us there Tuesday $1000 cash!! ouch! Got the car to dealer got a hotel six had a quite dinner little reflection time. Got phone call next day mech. says the timing belt failed and while cruising down the road @ 65 it destroyed all the valves and cam shafts which destroyed the engine might be able to find used A3 motor $3500 plus new $7000. Now I'm in just try to get it home mode. Found a Uhaul only thing they had was 15 footer and dolley $750 and my wife has never driven a truck other than my suburban and I can't drive yet with my prosthetic leg .Wife came thru with flyin colors got back home after 400mile drive.Got the car into Euro Tech Monday morn called later in the day he had a motor lined up would try and keep it under $5000 plus tax depending how long it takes for the motor to get there may have it done by Friday Monday at the least. Long story Long car done on Friday $5065 runs great wife's happy but heart broken as we didn't make it even to Wall Drug. Gonna take a couple of yrs to save to try and do it again for our 30th. This time we'll rent a car try to blow it up then demand a Caddy because of the inconvenience it's caused!! I've driven my 180,000 suburban out there 3 times go figure. Sorry for the long post but had to tell the story. Keep your eyes open may be some H&R's hitting the market soon!! Now where's that go fund me page. Kurt
 
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#11 ·
Sorry for you troubles brother.

I always wondered what one would do if the exotic had troubles out there.

I sat 14 hours waiting on a tire repair in ND once. Moral of the story, don’t break down on Sunday evening.


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#12 ·
Your old Suburban sounds better to me.

My old Tahoe just went over 200,000 and is still running great. Just replaced all the hoses and belts. Been all over the lower 48. Never left me stranded in the middle of nowhere.

My wife drives a german car.:p

We now rent a new Chevy SUV when we take long road trips. I dont like driving her car. Makes me feel cramped and I can't figure out all the controls with my far sighted vision. Can't even tell what speed I'm going. Not a problem with my Chevy controls. They just make more sense to me.
 
#13 ·
Controls...

I'm very comfortable with the Ford layout. It took me nearly 6 months to get onto Nissan idea of where things belonged. Went back to my Fords and about a week we were all peas and carrots again.

I'm not sure one or the other is correct. Just a lot more time in a Ford. I have the same feelings about Freightliner vs all others. I'm willing to accept another maker may be better, I'm just comfortable in what I'm familiar with.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#14 ·
Sorry about the vehicle troubles, a real pain no doubt.

We were in SD in mid June, had the best PD shoot EVER. We had dogs galore, yes we were on a ‘reservation’. No adverse issues.

I will pass a secret, ‘Google Earth’. Once zoomed in one can easily see the bare spots around the PD holes and mounds. The GE images and then reality once at the location were always accurate for us. One spot we walked 1.8 miles in to get to my favorite honey hole.

The plan is to go back next June, after I reload all the cases.
 
#16 ·
Man...when a guy gets all hyped up to go on a dream trip and then the wheels fall off it tends to let the wind out of your sails. At least you have that one behind you!

I used to go out to the Rosebud Indian Reservation every spring. There was a young preacher at the Mission Church in St Francis who just so happened to show up at the same prairie dog town that we were at. He was a nice fella so he joined us. He only had a 22 magnum but was doing pretty well with it. He ended up taking us all over the reservation to PD towns that we didn't know about. Best PD shoot that we ever had. At the end of our stay I handed the young preacher my Remington 700 ADL 223 and a can of ammo and told him it was his for his guide service. If I knew that he was going to hug me for 15 minutes I probably wouldn't have given it to him...ok maybe it was 15 seconds but you get the idea. He took us on another good hunt the following year and corresponded some. Then the third year it was like he disappeared off the face of the earth. Who knows, maybe he did? That little corner of the world had it's own rules to a degree back then and maybe still does.

I can't imagine having a car break down in the badlands or in the sandhill region of Nebraska. You could go unnoticed for a day or so!
 
#17 ·
Yes GPA, the reservations do still operate on a somewhat different set of rules, mostly, if you know what the Ps andQs are you will be fine. And yeah at places being stranded in the sandhills can be rather disconcerting if youre not used to that kind of wide open. I grew up in it, so for me being stranded in moles and miles of woods would be disconcerting. Lol
 
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