ND Badlands

[nomadicbohunk]

Any advice would be welcome. Or telling me I'm totally off with my plan.

My wife wanted/wants to bike the Maah Daah Hey Trail. I was like awesome, sounds great, let's do it when I draw an any deer archery tag there. Well, I did this year. So while she's biking I plan on hopefully getting busted on multiple stalks. I've hunted prairie mule deer before, so I'm not totally clueless. Just mostly. I'd say I'm taking this hunt 50% seriously. It should just be fun.

We'll go in early October for logistical reasons with her biking partner. So a bunch of other seasons will be on. My plan is to just hike to some high points, sit on a chair, and glass. My big question is if I should stick closer to the river or farther away in general. I'm planning on farther. I've pinned a bunch of areas without oil wells, so that's kind of where I'm going to focus. It doesn't sound like water is much of an issue in that country as far as hunting goes. I'm aware of snakes and bentonite. Is there anything else I should be aware of? I'm not planning on driving down any private leased oil roads. I'll just stick to what's on whatever vehicle use map I can get from the USFS.

Thanks!

 

[chevyman181]

ND game fish have a pretty good interactive map on their website, it's worth a look. OnX can get you in trouble, they don't have the Non-motorized areas accurate and there has been some issues with the electronic postings.

I've never heard of anyone having their vehicle messed with but don't of the ranchers out there get pissy from time to time. Most the time is because people are driving off road or being disrespectful..

The MDH is a great ride but slick and sticky when it's wet.

If you're looking for whitetails, stick within a mile or so of the river or ag fields, muleys it don't really matter.

There is typically water pretty easily found with all the cattle on the Grasslands.... I would plan on hauling all your drinking water and not filtering any.

Are you going to follow your wife up the trail or drop her off and meet her at the other end?

 

[nomadicbohunk]

ND game fish have a pretty good interactive map on their website, it's worth a look. OnX can get you in trouble, they don't have the Non-motorized areas accurate and there has been some issues with the electronic postings.

I've never heard of anyone having their vehicle messed with but don't of the ranchers out there get pissy from time to time. Most the time is because people are driving off road or being disrespectful..

The MDH is a great ride but slick and sticky when it's wet.

If you're looking for whitetails, stick within a mile or so of the river or ag fields, muleys it don't really matter.

There is typically water pretty easily found with all the cattle on the Grasslands.... I would plan on hauling all your drinking water and not filtering any.

Are you going to follow your wife up the trail or drop her off and meet her at the other end?

Thanks!

I don't trust onx 100% and maybe only 10% with roads. I'm just going to stick with federal and state ground (I know about the signs on state), out there as there's so much and why stress.

She's aware she'll be stuck if it rains and I am too. Good to know on the water. I was wondering about that.

The plan is we'll all cache their food and water and I'll drop them off at the beginning. Then I'm going to go off and do my own thing. She might be solo, but we don't know yet for sure. We'll keep in touch with satellite communicators if something happens. We do a lot of trips but this one's a little tricky as we're trying to do two things. It'll be a success if I can get a stalk or two in. I thought about just hunting sharptails and fishing, but this seemed more fun and the tag wasn't too much. Depending on the hunting I might meet up with them for a night. I know they're going to take their time doing it to really enjoy it.

We're starting to overthink it all already as we'll fly out. We've flown a lot to do several week paddling or hiking (or hunts for me) trips, but this one will require more stuff as we're kind of each doing our own thing for a good chunk of it. We're talking about some time on some time on the back end so we can do a quick backpack in Yellowstone and I want to do a little cutthroat fishing. It should be a great trip. We're thinking about taking a good chunk of time off for it. It's going to be a lot of crap to fly with for sure.

 

[chevyman181]

Thanks!

I don't trust onx 100% and maybe only 10% with roads. I'm just going to stick with federal and state ground (I know about the signs on state), out there as there's so much and why stress.

She's aware she'll be stuck if it rains and I am too. Good to know on the water. I was wondering about that.

The plan is we'll all cache their food and water and I'll drop them off at the beginning. Then I'm going to go off and do my own thing. She might be solo, but we don't know yet for sure. We'll keep in touch with satellite communicators if something happens. We do a lot of trips but this one's a little tricky as we're trying to do two things. It'll be a success if I can get a stalk or two in. I thought about just hunting sharptails and fishing, but this seemed more fun and the tag wasn't too much. Depending on the hunting I might meet up with them for a night. I know they're going to take their time doing it to really enjoy it.

We're starting to overthink it all already as we'll fly out. We've flown a lot to do several week paddling or hiking (or hunts for me) trips, but this one will require more stuff as we're kind of each doing our own thing for a good chunk of it. We're talking about some time on some time on the back end so we can do a quick backpack in Yellowstone and I want to do a little cutthroat fishing. It should be a great trip. We're thinking about taking a good chunk of time off for it. It's going to be a lot of crap to fly with for sure.

Where are you going in from?

The numbers are low and have been the last few years but you should have no issues finding a few deer. I live here so I always want people to wait and shoot mature critters. Even though the numbers are low there are still good deer running around.

You can DM if you have any questions about specifics. I'm not a "local" but I've live here for over 12 years and worked for the FS most that time.

 

[NDGuy]

You'll find deer, things slow down a bit out there in October as more folks are hunting upland and waterfowl.

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