Favorite Small Game

There's not enough meat. Why not just eat this instead?

I hear that these taste like strawberry chicken.

Me:I like reading stories to frogs.

Frogs:

Boiling water kills poisons and bacteria 😳🧐

Last night a coon got me outta bed.
The smell of ripe grapes is attracting everything to my place. It was climbing around on my porch roof. I set the trap. If anyone has a Cajun recipe for it, Justin will.

There are some pretty long videos on racoon preparation. This one is only little over 3 minutes and shares some practical advice for all game. Remove the glands. Here's the location on a coon. On different game it will be in different locations. I might get out my Dad's pressure cooker next time to tenderize like this guy recommends. After that it can be prepared in many recipes. I'll post this for anyone who wants to give it a try.

Them grubs...nah , I'll let the crows tend to them vermin's.

Here's a question though. Do you think two different bears, say a black bear and a grizzly, from the same area would taste the same?

I posted it because the video describes what must be done when cleaning all game. It will help anyone considering hunting/ trapping game.

I have yet to try racoon and thought about burying it under a berry patch I'm going to plant in another location. I chased it off, but it'll be back.

I can only guess what black bears and grizzly taste like from any location.
I've been told by elk hunters that spend thousands for guided hunts in western states that our whitetails taste much better than the mules and elks in the west.

Even though I don't have the experience with bears, we can expect them to vary depending on the season and their diets regardless of which we are talking about. The locals who hunt them both in regions they overlap would know. That's an interesting question, but can't honestly tell you.

One thing is likely. That raccoon that's been climbing my grape trellis each night should have sweet meat by now. He tore into all the bags and cleaned up what he could reach the last two nights. He left the traps alone.

I'm usually feeding woodchucks, so I've never even considered eating them. I grew up in the country. Frog legs are a fave. The common things like rabbit, squirrel, and game birds are always tasty. I've eaten rattlesnake, which I thought was tasty. I didn't personally care for turtle meat. I miss country food.
Also, I am a Justin Wilson fan.
Btw, sorry to bring up an old thread, but the woodchuck post captured my attention.

I keep wincing as I picture Bugs Bunny in a pot of stew, Rocky the Squirrel, in a recipe, Yurtle the Turtle falling off the top of the stack and breaking his back so he can't swim away from Justin Wilson! 😯

But seriously, I also have a soft spot for wood chucks, or ground hogs we call them here.
I raised a couple brothers and used them in wildlife education programs until they chucked wood, chewed trough the roof of their pen and escaped.
I also raised rabbits, birds and started with frogs. I used to see adds for smoked Rattlesnake. Never tried it, but heard it was good. $12 / pound sticks in my mind so I must have considered it way back then, leafing through a catalog as a kid.
Game is normally a whole lot healthier than farm raised. All that's in the supermarkets is giant corporate farm raised meat and produce. I need to start the raised beds early this year. Do you do any gardening?

It's hard to not like woodchucks. I grew up in the country, but live on the edge of town now. I actually see a lot more critters where I'm at now than I did in the country. It'd be nice if the neighbors were as appealing as the critters.

I didn't do any hunting, but hunters would come into my grandmother's bar and barter with wild game. So I got to enjoy a fair amount of it. My grandmother was into trotlining, so I ate a good amount of fish also. I wasn't necessarily the best fisherwoman like she was, so I was put in charge of rowing the boat lol I greatly enjoyed it though.

Even though I grew up surrounded by vegetable gardens, I have a toxic thumb. Also, I tend to spend time between here and Georgia, so a garden would suffer lack of attention. Gardens are great though, not only does the produce taste much better, but gardening is therapeutic. Once you've had homegrown produce, it's hard to eat the store bought stuff.