If you’ve never experienced BBWs in Isabel, SD, this is your sign to do so. I was a little unsure at first, having spoken to many friends who had been there specifically for the BBWs before, but this year was the first time I decided to go myself to see what the hype around the Isabel BBWs was all about. 

BBWs obviously stand for Beer, Beef, and World Class Genetics: courtesy of Lindskov LT Ranch at their one-of-a-kind Annual Bull Sale on the ranch in their state-of-the-art, million-dollar sale facility. It takes a one-of-a-kind event to sell a $250,000 bull, and that’s exactly what happened on Saturday when Yearling Bull Lot #278 from the Angus Division walked into the sale ring.

Being a cow-calf producer, I’ve been to my share of bull sales, buying a lot from nearby Wilken Angus in Meadow, SD. But few ranchers buy every bull from a single seedstock producer, and we get a few from other reputable sources as well. 

Somehow, for all our bull buying, we’ve never been to and experienced what many people consider the premier bull sale in much of the Upper Midwest- Lindskovs LT- featuring 600 bulls of registered Charolais, Hereford, and Black Angus Stock. I took a buyer number just in case a real steal deal came up, but since I already had enough bulls and spares for my breeding season, it was mostly a scouting mission for next year.

It didn’t feel like a regular bull sale. It felt like a cultural event, carrying the vibe of a Private Stock Show, just without the Rapid City Stock Show Traffic. Feed reps, bankers, neighbors, and locals mixed with hundreds of ranchers from around the State and Country, and I even spotted one Congressional Candidate there, beer in hand. 

This is a scheduled 3-day event- with time to view the bulls, have a complimentary lunch in town, ribeye steak dinner the night before, and a social hour. The next day, complimentary breakfast, lunch, and dinner, including Prime Rib, Steak, and Brisket.

Sounds expensive, right? But the complimentary open bar, featuring any beer and whiskey you can think of, is the liquid courage an unsure bidder might need just a little later, when the Angus Bulls sell. After all, a few hundred dollars in booze and beef is barely a rounding error when that person spends $15,000…$25,000…$60,000…$150,000…or $250,000 on a bull just a little later on.

Those aren’t just random numbers; I saw bulls sell for all of those prices last Saturday. A quarter million dollars sounds like an incredible price for someone to pay for a bull- but when you’re not just in the business of selling bulls, but selling bulls to outfits that also sell bulls, you have a business model to last if your genetics pass the litmus test. Lindskov LT passes, and the bulls’ prices prove it. But there are a lot of bulls affordable to the average commercial producer as well, with many bulls bringing less than $25,000 and being related to the same genetics as the ones topping the sale.

For our outfit, on our running-age cows, we try to target bulls in the 88-93lb birthweight category that wean 700+ lb calves for our basic bull-buying strategy. Using that metric, in the very nice catalog Bryce Lindskov sent me, priority mail ahead of the sale, I marked over 30 bulls to look at in the Angus Division before diving into other EPD scores (Expected Progeny Differences) about milk, feet, and ribeye area. 

These bulls were gentle enough to be bottle calves in their past, and it took a few smacks of the hand on the rump to get some of them to move around in the back pens to get a look at them if you weren’t already scratching them under the chin. Straight-backed, well-muscled, but no pot bellies or bad steps, for someone thinking about buying bulls just “on the numbers” over the phone, this is probably one of the safer sales to do that at. 

Beyond the bulls themselves, speaking with many people at the sale, customers buying a $14,000 bull told me they were treated with the same respect and given the same time as the customer buying the $250,000 bull, and that’s pretty important. Lindskov’s LT is the real deal. I’ll be back next year, and it’ll be more than a scouting mission; and that’s no bull.

Collin Duprel is a guest columnist for the Rapid City Post. Opinions expressed may not necessarily represent the views of the Rapid City Post, its affiliates, or advertisers.