Dakota Outfitters - Big Game Hunting
Whether you are looking for Elk Hunting, Whitetail Hunting, Muley Hunting, Pronghorn Antelope, or Turkey Hunting - Dakota Outfitters has just the organizations you are looking for!
Dakota Elk Hunting
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The elk, or wapiti, is one of the largest species of deer in the world and one of the largest mammals in North America and eastern Asia. In the deer family, only the moose is larger. Elk range in forest and forest-edge habitat, feeding on grasses, plants, leaves, and bark. Male elk have large antlers which are shed each year. Males engage in ritualized mating behaviors during the rut, including posturing, antler wrestling, and bugling, a loud series of screams which establishes dominance over other males and attracts females. The bugle call is one of the most distinctive calls in nature.
Whitetails
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The white-tailed deer is a medium-sized deer native to all but five states in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, and northern portions of South America as far south as Peru. The deer's coat is a reddish-brown in the spring and summer and turns to a grey-brown throughout the fall and winter. The deer can be recognized by the characteristic white underside to its tail, which it shows as a signal of alarm by raising the tail during escape. North American male deer (also known as a buck) usually weighs from 130 to 300 pounds but, in rare cases, bucks in excess of 375 pounds have been recorded. The record-sized White-tailed Deer weighed just over 500 pounds and was found in Minnesota. Males re-grow their antlers every year. Antlers begin to grow in late spring, covered with a highly vascularised tissue known as velvet. Bucks either have a typical or non-typical antler arrangement. Typical antlers are symmetrical and the points grow straight up off the main beam. Non-typical antlers are asymmetrical and the points may project at any angle from the main beam. These descriptions are not the only limitations for typical and a typical antler arrangement. The Boone and Crockett or Pope & Young scoring systems also define relative degrees of typicality and atypicality by procedures to measure what proportion of the antlers are asymmetrical. Therefore, bucks with only slight asymmetry will often be scored as "typical". A buck's inside spread can be anywhere from 3 - 25 in. Bucks shed their antlers when all females have been bred, from late December to February.
Mule Deer
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The mule deer is a deer whose habitat is in the western half of North America. It gets its name from its large mule-like ears. Adult male mule deer are called bucks, adult females are called does, and young of both sexes are called fawns. Its closest relative is the black-tailed deer (considered by some a subspecies of mule deer). Unlike its cousin, the white-tailed deer, mule deer are generally more associated with the land west of the Missouri River. The most noticeable differences between whitetails and muleys are the color of their tails and configuration of their antlers. The mule deer's tail is black tipped. Mule deer antlers are bifurcated, or "fork" as they grow rather than branching from a single main beam (as with white-tails). Each year a buck's antlers start to grow in spring and are shed after mating season from mid-January to mid-April. Mule deer bucks have somewhat more prominent ears than females. Instead of running, mule deer move with a bounding leap (stotting) with all four feet coming down together. The mule deer is the largest of the its genus, standing, on the average, 40 to 42 inches at the shoulders and stretching 80 inches or so nose to tail. An adult buck will weigh from 150 to 300 pounds on the hoof, with does averaging 100 to 175 pounds. The occasional trophy-sized mule deer buck may weigh in around 400 pounds. The Mule Deer does not show marked size variation across its range as does the White-tailed Deer.
Pronghorn Antelope
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The pronghorn, though not an antelope is also known as pronghorn antelope or prong buck. It is a species of ungulate mammal native to interior western and central North America. It is the only surviving member of the family Antilocapridae. Adult males are 4 1/4-5 ft long from nose to tail and stand 2 5/8-3 3/8 ft high at the shoulder, and weigh 88-132 lb. The females are as long, but average slightly less heavy, 88-110 lb. The main color of adults is brown or tan, with a white rump and belly and two white stripes on the throat. A short dark mane grows along the neck, and males also sport a black mask and black patches on the sides of the neck. Males have a prominent pair of horns on the top of the head, which are made up of an outer sheath of hairlike substance that grows around a bony core; the outer sheath is shed annually. Males have a horn sheath about 12.5 - 43 cm long with a prong. Males are further differentiated from females in that males will have a small patch of black hair at the corner of the jawbone. Pronghorns have a distinct, musky odor. Males mark territory with a scent gland located on the sides of the head. They also have very large eyes, with a 320 degree field of vision. Unlike deer, pronghorns possess a gallbladder. The pronghorn can run exceptionally fast, being built for maximum predator evasion through running, and is generally accepted to be the fastest land mammal in the New World. The top speed is very hard to measure accurately and varies between individuals; it is variously cited as up to 86 km/h. It is often cited as the second-fastest land animal, second only to the cheetah. It can however sustain high speeds longer than cheetahs.
Turkeys
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The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is one of two species of turkey, the other being the Ocellated Turkey, found in Central America. Adult male Wild Turkeys have a small, featherless, reddish head that can change to blue in minutes; a red throat in males; long reddish-orange to greyish-blue legs; and a black body. The head has fleshy growths called caruncles; in excited turkeys, a fleshy flap on the bill expands, becoming engorged with blood. Males have red wattles on the throat and neck. Each foot has four toes, and males have rear spurs on their lower legs. Turkeys have a long, dark, fan-shaped tail and glossy bronze wings. As with many other species of the Galliformes, turkeys exhibit strong sexual dimorphism. The male is substantially larger than the female, and his feathers have areas of red, purple, green, copper, bronze, and gold iridescence. Female feathers are duller overall, in shades of brown and gray. The primary wing feathers have white bars. Turkeys have 20,000 to 30,000 feathers. Tail feathers have the same length in adults, different lengths in juveniles. Males typically have a "beard" consisting of modified feathers that stick out from the breast. Beards average 9 inches in length. The record-sized adult male wild turkey, according to the National Wildlife Turkey Federation, was 38 lb.