Grand Slam Trip Suggeations

[AC HAMMER]

Hello! It has been a dream of mine to get a grand slam. Like many other hunters who are trying to achieve this I'm not real sure the best places around the country for the birds I need. I have killed my Eastern bird so I need the others. I would like to hunt public land because the hunting ranches are too expensive. So I'm looking for suggestions on what states (and names of public places in those states) to hunt! I appreciate any info! Thanks!

[fallhnt]

NE. for Merriams. North West corner is where you will find public land and birds to hunt.

[WW]

Wyoming and South Dakota were by far the prettiest places that I've ever hunted! We called one gobbler down a "hill" to us.... it was a beautiful sight.  I can't wait to go back..

[wvboy]

Western Oklahoma or Kansas is probably your best bet for a Rio on public ground..

Osceola will be the toughest.. not too many public places and they are overrun .. I killed my Osceola on a Military base on a Quota Hunt.. took me a couple years to draw the tag, but it was worth it.

[ddturkeyhunter]

Like wvboy said the Osceola is one of the harder one to get on public land. I got one public land slam done and am going down to Florida again this spring. Florida Public land is over run with people is an understatement, it is a zoo. the first year I was down there second day out a guy shot my decoy. Don't use jake decoys on public land leave home. the first year in 2009 I didn't shoot one. in 2010 i shot one and in 2013 i shot one, but not on open weekend mid week, when pressure died down some. A real challenge but thats what makes a public land slam so sweet.

[tha bugman]

Good luck to you!  Its a wild ride!

[alloutdoors]

It can be hard tho with the people, but I kill em every season without a quota permit.

Yeah, but like you said, you live in south Florida so you have opportunities to learn the land. Not that it makes it "easy", but it's a much different scenario than someone who is going in blind. For an out of state hunter I think a quota permit is well worth the time it takes to draw a tag, you don't have to deal with quite as much pressure which helps offset some of the other hurdles. I drew a quota tag last year which was my second year applying, and managed to kill my bird on the second morning of the hunt. I got down there 1 1/2 days early and spent the time scouting, I located the bird I killed while scouting after hunting hours had ended on the first day. In the future I'd try to have at least three full days to scout ahead of the start of the hunt. Strange thing was I only ran into one other person scouting early in the morning the day before the hunt started. I never saw anyone else out there in the evenings trying to roost birds at all. Then again that might be part of why only two birds were taken during that three day hunt.