I am moving to the Newcastle, WY/ Rapid City, SD area at the end of Sept. I have never been there before and I was wanting to hear how good the hunting opportunities are in that area. Any info or advise is greatly appreciated.  

That is in the middle of the Black Hills, or as I like to call them the "Little Rockies". It's one of my all time favorite places in the US. Tons of game. Both in variety and numbers. I have seen, just off the top of my head, mulies, whitetails, elk, mountain goat, bighorns, prong horns, buffalo, mountain lions, and turkeys out th ying yang. That doesn't even include the small game which there seems to be plenty of. There's roughly 1 million acres of national forest in the hills that's open to hunting and boundless prairies all around it. If you like hunting (which I assume you do), you will be in heaven. It's a good thing too as there's not much else around there. LOL

There is more public land to hunt on the SD side of the line. Like bbassi says, it's one of my favorite parts of the country. You can't get enough of it.

You are only going to like it if you like to hunt turkeys, deer, antelope,or elk, or catch trout, or look at really nice scenery  :D  . If you are on the Wyoming side, you will be able to buy OTC elk licenses for the Bighorns, which are about 100 miles away. Newcastle is a nice little town, Rapid is more of a small city. If you aren't locked in to those, there is Custer, Sturgis, Spearfish and Deadwood on the SoDak side, and Sundance on the Wyoming side that are all nice places.

I just bought 40 acres (Closed yesterday) on the edge of the Black Hills/National Forest about halfway between Devils Tower and Sundance.  Mostly pine forest with about 10 acres of meadow/pasture to keep a few horses. I hope to build my retirement home there some day in the not too distant future and become a Wyoming resident.  Its one of my favorite places and centrally located for hunting in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Colorado, places I have hunted multiple times.

Gorgeous Area!

We spent last summer in Custer SD and one day headed west out of town towards Devil Tower.  That's some serious land with tons of wildlife.  Here's a few photos.  The ones with lake are taken in Custer State park just east of Custer.  Sylvan Lake...AWESOME PLACE!

The others are taken just inside the Wyoming Border.

Tim,

That last picture of Devil's Tower was taken very close to my new acreage.  My place is just up the hill about a mile or so to the south, about an eighth of a mile off the blacktop.  I have a good view of the Tower from there.

I agree with the above and contemplate the area for the future.  Probably the biggest drawback is the cheesy billboards along the highways, makes it look very tacky like Lake Ozark, Mazzoura or something.  The BH deer don't alwasy get real big but many tags available, loads of turkeys, access to pronghorn areas in WY that always have leftover tags, and on, and on....

And not far from MT/ND/NE if you really want to get after it...

I live in Eastern South Dakota.  The Missouri River divides the state in half.  I have hunted in Black Hills for twenty plus years.  Good populations of both whitetails and mule deer but you now have to apply to get a rifle license.  You usually can get one about every other year. Non resident license if probably tougher to get.  If you are resident of South Dakota you can only get an elk licnese once every 9 years (rifle or archery) unless there is cow tags leftover.  Better hunting in the Big Horns for elk.  You can also hunt deer east river and west river or statewide with an archery license and get a rifle license for the Black Hills, west river and east river.  There is good populations of antelope west river and some good turkey hunting in the Black Hills.  If you like to pheasant hunt Eastern South Dakota has some of the best pheasant hunting in the country and there is really good walleye fishing in the Missouri River.  The Black Hills are getting touristy and it is dissapointing. I go to the Bighorns every year archery hunting and like the wide open spaces better out there than I do in the Black Hills.  But if you are an outdoorsman there is plenty to do in South Dakota.

Hey John....Isn't that a beautiful area!  Very remote and not much going on, Custer and I believe Sundance are about the only towns in the area.  Devils Tower was worth the ride.

Be sure to check out Custer State Park, if you haven't already.  The place was incredible and my son and I fly fished the lake in the photo every night for a week and watched the sun go down!

Hulett, WY would be my choice. Nice little town about 10 miles from Devils Tower. Nice area no matter if it is SD or WY

Ah the land of my youth!  Awesome memories, thanks!

Man that is just absolutely gorgeous!!
I'm looking to move to the land of my dreams within the next 6 mos or  so and this just makes me want to leave that much sooner.  Problem is I'm undecided on where that might be, this makes the pot even sweeter.
Thanks for sharing guys!

Think I'm gonna start a thread on where like minded fellows such as ourselves might go if we could live anywhere.  Thanks again
Nathan

Wow the responses and pics are fantastic! This has put our minds at ease about the big move. Amazingly enough, we are looking at living near Custer, SD. It looks like I will be working in Newcastle, WY and my fiance will be working in Rapid City, SD. It looks like Custer is in the middle of all the great hunting and fishing. We will miss hunting the wood lots and fields of Southern Illinois but we can't wait to hit the ground running after all the critters. Thanks again everyone.

Tim, I climbed and repelled the biggest rock behind you in the first picture on Sylvan Lake.  I climbed it in June when I was in the area for the North American Longbow Safari.  

Chad

I would have to live on the Wy side of the line for otc general elk tags. It would be very hard to live that close and still have to draw for tags.

hey buddy welcom out here im about  1 hr   south of ya on the wyoming nebraska border   p m  me and well get togather i can always use a new bow hunting buddy haha brock