South Dakota Hunting Guide - Jim River Guide Service

South Dakota Hunting Blog

South Dakota Bison Hunt

Proper South Dakota bison hunt...
Most of what people believe about bison, and everything related to them, originates from Buffalo Bill and his traveling circus. Very little, if any, fact checking was done to scrutinize his entertaining tales, why would they!?!?!? His stories, Hollywood movies, and grade school social studies books, international artists depicting life on the prairie require no fact checking.

It's not like they were going to appear on FOX News or CNN where everybody has to tell the truth!!!! I hope you are sensing the sarcasm because I'm laying it on pretty thick.

I, on the contrary, have a solid foundation of data from guiding over 900 bison hunts on big country. My data does not originate from an all-theory ballistics article! I openly and unapologetically question the validity of some of the stories about one shot kills, skinning times, lethal range, edible meats, prime cuts, and how many years they were hunted by natives and how their body parts were utilized from theory experts.

"Never underestimate the commonality of bullshit." Willie Dvorak, author/hunter/big game guide/internet reader-hahahaha

"Old classic buffalo rifles" are a spectacular way to harvest a bison in slaughterhouse conditions where the wounded bison has no place to go or no desire to leave. That doesn't describe where Jim River Guide Service hunts them. Stories that originated with Buffalo Bill, painters, et cetera, state the 45-70 and sister cartridges killed a slug of buffalo, but they don't mention how many they wounded. Nobody does. That's a big deal.

'Ethical kill' was not of the slightest concern back in the 80s....the EIGHTEEN eighties!

My data shows bullet placement is a big deal and fantastically predictable with elk, moose, elephants, Cape buffalo, brown bears, et cetera, but little more than game of chance with bison. When you are standing over the top of a dead one, I can easily show you why bullet placement importance is theory driven voodoo.

If you’ve not stood over the top of a few hundred dead bison, you may possibly not believe it. That’s OK. Some people believe a woman can do anything a man can do because they’ve seen it happen a few times—but my data shows something else.

That makes antique rifles perfect for the faux or nostalgic experience. We are not into animal cruelty. We conduct only modern rifle modern caliber hunts. 30-06 to 300 Win mags, through the 375 and 40 caliber calibers are excellent if you can hit what you aim at.

I sell out every year and hunt/kill more bison than anybody in the world because I don't over promise, I provide what I promise, and don't go along with fantasy expectations. Some hunters like my straight forward approach while others like to live out a romantic dream. Those are awesome too! Just not what we do.

There's plenty of choices. Go to YouTube and find many archery and antique kills on bison...then look closely at the doomed animals that stand and stare at the shootist, don't even try to escape after a shot, or fall to a well placed slaughterhouse style earshot-then watch the vids on my channel if you like more authentic experiences.

"Willie, thanks for a great time on the tundra. You made camp a great place to be and paying attention to detail made it even more enjoyable. Experiences like these are rare but you make them happen. You have a great team. Thanks again for all you and your team have done." Tony, IN