Finally have a few minutes and thought I'd resurrect this thread to give an update on my trip. I read a lot of threads with people asking for advise and they're usually never updated. I don't want to be one of those guys, so here ya go.
My brother and I had a great time. He lives across the country from me now and I don't get to see him very often so this was a very memorable trip. I'd also like to say thanks again to everyone who contributed to this thread.
I ended up flying into Rapid City and was picked up at the airport by my brother in his F-250 bro dozer. We grabbed some supplies that I ordered online and had set for in-store pickup at Walmart before heading out to our rental in Hill City. After checking in and unpacking we just took a drive around to get a feeling for what we had been looking at for months on google earth. My memory isn't good enough to give daily rundowns, but we were seeing animals every day. We hiked a lot more than either of us were accustomed to, but it was great country. My brother ended up shooting a buck the 3rd or 4th day. I saw a ton of deer, but only two that I would have hung a tag on. Unfortunately, neither opportunity materialized.
His buck
I offered to show him the gutless method but he's hardheaded and wanted to drag it almost 2 miles back to the truck. He dropped his deer off at Freedom Wild in Box Elder SD for processing. It's not the easiest place to find but Rich is a great guy. He had the deer ready exactly as requested the very next day. I've never taken a deer to a processor as I have everything I need to do most anything myself, but I'd have no problem giving mine to Rich, especially being so far from home.
We were seeing a lot of deer in the southern section of the unit but nothing that I was interested in. My brother on the other hand, doesn't get to hunt as much so he was content and having a blast. After he tug out I convinced him to take a drive up into a spot I had marked that was a pretty decent ride from where we were staying. It was snowing pretty good when I left the truck to hike to an area I wanted to check out. about a mile or so in I bumped two deer from their beds. One looked like a really great buck but I only caught a quick glimpse of him. The deer were about 70-80yds away, but they managed to use the few smaller pine trees on the edge of a clear cut to conceal themselves pretty well. One of the deer, which seemed to be pretty big bodied had his entire head and neck behind one of these pines. I looked the deer over through my scope several times trying to make out if it was the buck or doe but I just couldn't. He stayed there still as a statue for probably a good minute or two. Directly in front of the deer was great opening, so I decided to just be patient for a change and wait for it to clear the pine to confirm it was the buck. As my luck would have it, when he finally decided to move, it was at full speed and I watched what was probably the biggest buck I'd ever seen run out of site. I'm still tortured by the site of that buck bounding through that clearing. After thinking about it I realized that I had an any whitetail tag, which made me even more sick. I basically had a 50-50 shot at shooting a giant or hanging my tag on a doe. I wasn't there to shoot a doe but I wouldn't have been pissed about it either as my brother really wanted venison to take home. Afterwards, I ended up seeing a few other deer but nothing worth shooting while checking out some other areas I had marked on my On-X map. On the hike back out I watched a decent sized mule deer chasing a handful of doe around. I wasn't able to get a great pic but here you go.
The next day we checkout out another area. No shooters, but I did see three bull elk. Again the pics aren't great because of the snow. They were right at 300 yds in this pic. I was able to get within about 85 yds as I worked my way past them.
On the last day I headed back to the clear cut where I saw the big buck. I saw a few smaller deer that morning and a really nice mule deer buck. The buck came by me at 40 yds. I've never killed a muley, what do you guys think he'd score?
I ended up taking up a nice spot overlooking the clear cut from a rock perch on the opposite side because the wind shifted on me. Had three more bull elk walk by at a distance that my unathletic azz could have hit them with rocks. About 20 mins before the end of legal shooting time I spotted a really nice buck dogging 2 doe through the middle of the clear cut I was watching. About 200 yds out they dropped down into a little low spot. I watched the doe come out and work their way a few hundred yards down the mountain, across the FS road and out of sight. I have no idea where that buck went. It was like he vanished in a little blind spot in the middle of an area where I could see several hundred yards in three directions. The only thing I can think of is that he changed directions while I was looking through the scope waiting for him to enter one of the clearings the doe came through. Why he left those doe, or where he went I'll never know.
At the end of it, I didn't fill my tag but we had a great time. I'm on the fence about whether or not I'd return. Sounds like the SDGF may make my mind up for me anyway, as the new draw proposals don't seem very kind to non-res from what I can understand. I just hope I'm able to cash in my W River points for a MD tag in the future.
