RE: Headed to dog town!
I just got back from south western south dakota last weekend. Had fun, but had trouble finding good shooting. the rancher we were at last year didn't have squat and the road to his ranch was washed out. It took an extra hour of driving round to get into his house.
The Buffalo Gap National Grasslands are pretty shot out already. It also was extremely hot (the digital thermometer read 115 degrees in the sun, high 90's in the shade. If it wasn't hot, it was cloudy with a thirty mph wind. Guess we got the wrong weekend this year.
Had some decent shooting on some private land on the last day, but it was still to hot, the dogs didn't even want to come out.
17 hmr's work well, but don't try to reach to far with them. Just like anything, if you hit them right, you can reach out quite a bit farther. Our record for a 17 hmr so far is 333 yrds. We checked it with a range finder and still didn't believe it so we walked it. It was a chest shot. The critter just fell over. Neat shot other than for the rest of the weekend all we heard was 3-3-3. the guy had trouble connecting with the 223 he brought, but he made that shot with his 17. We started calling him the pregnant sow (gestation period of 3 months 3 weeks and 3 days) after listening to 3-3-3 several times.
have fun and good luck finding good shooting, I wish you the best.