Just finished a (nearly ) week long hunt for Merriam's on Standing Rock reservation with 0-fer the week. It is an amazingly game rich area along the Missouri River and the res straddles the SD/ND line.
There were lots of birds but almost no gobbling - I think we were at least a week late as the birds were back in hen and gobbler groups. They were roosted in any area that had drainages with cottonwood and burr oaks and we found several roost trees We had a lot of opportunities but just couldn't get the birds to commit to the final few years to get an ethical shot or had to attempt a blind stalk as they would gather on open ridge tops once they hit the ground.
Our first morning we located a couple of gobblers driving a smaller creek drainage with a coyote call but couldn't get any answers to yelping and felt like the birds were on the other side of creek so we drive back to bridge and hiked up the backside of creek back toward birds a mile up creek. We intercepted them about 3/4 of a mile in and finally got two birds gobbling. Were able to call them to within 75 yards and had an another gobbler and hen answering from another direction. Both sets of birds hung up and then got lockjaw. Our last moves in them yielded nothing.
Had another couple of hunts where we had birds close that didn't like our fans on first hunt - bird was within 50 yards and had my bead on it waiting for it to get another 5 yards closer to clear some junk for a clean shot that just turned and walked a steep hill for no apparent reason until I noticed my fan was visible propped up by a small bush that I didn't notice when I laid it down
Had another bird that was yelping as it was coming in (thought is was a hen at first ) but went nuts putting when it saw my hen decoy and turned and walked through some junk that I could see glimpses of his red head that never presented a good shot.
My last good hunt was duel with boss hen that had a gobbler in tow - she was pissed and just making a racket every time I talked over her - then had a rain storm kick up that immediately shut everything down.
We had several other spot and stalk hunts on birds across the big draws that we got close to but stalking turkeys in open fields when they aren't responding to calls is always dicey. Lots of glassing and open hilltops that you could see for miles. Most of our hunts were along the big river.
We will go back again but earlier in the season - in addition to the high turkey population, we glassed up multiple muleys and white tails, saw hundreds of ducks in every little field puddle out there, and saw pheasants all along the road side - the roosters literally glow when the evening sun hits them. In a fifteen minute stretch that first morning , we flushed two pheasants , put up some mallards out of the creek, jumped a whitetail and heard turkeys gobbling. Got a ten minute video of mule deer buck feeding within 17 yards one evening at the bottom of a draw I was setup in. Got a ton of OnX waypoints for birds for anyone that wants to get a merriam on (semi) public land in SD. We also managed to catch a walleye, wiper, shad, and a big smallie in 30 min of fishing at a boat launch pier off of Lake Oahe. Would be an awesome pheasant / duck hunt in October when seasons overlap