The best eating animal out there

1. Livingstone's Eland
2. Moose
3. Elk (very close behind Moose!)
4. Pronghorn
5. Woodland Caribou

All these are so close that I'd be hardpressed to defend any of their place in order of favorite. Individual animals can vary greatly and move these choices all around. This is just my limited experience reflected in the order.

Heck...the best eating is the one on my plate at any given time...drink a good bottle of wine while cooking it, and its always good...! :? :wink:

luv2 (eat critters)

DS,

Eland hump roasted is as good as it gets! They can be had on exotic hunting farms in Texas, by the way.

Pronghorn require the utmost care in field preparation...no hair on the meat, guts and hide removed ASAP and GET THEM COOL!

All game deserves good care and should be treated with respect for the great critter they once were. :idea:

Please don't shoot what you won't eat...such a waste of a living thing...(humans not included :wink: )

luv2

Ugly,

I've heard that Stone and Dall sheep are great eating. Our Desert Bighorn taste like a goats a##. They live pretty tough lives...

That goose the otter provided you reminded me of a time many years ago when I went to visit my buddy in Alaska. He had to "pull the French Leave", so to speak...the girl's name was Diedra as I recall...and Southeastern Alaska was as far from Reno as his money carried him. :wink:

Well, I flew to Ketchikan and Jim had all the arrangements made for our float plane hop over to Kegan Lake for some sea run cutthroat fishing. We had the Forest Service lake cabin reserved for four days and provisions for five days, including a case of a nice dry white wine...I don't remember the variety, however. :?

The fishing was fantastic and the black bears were thick...some real big ones showed up! :shock: Kegan River was no more than a substantial creek about a long mile long down to the horeshoe inlet on the sound. The "saltwater cabin" was located there.

Now, in those days, if you had any left over canned goods or salt, pepper, spices, etc., you left it for the next party in. It proved to be highly fortuituos...... :!:

The plane was to pick us up by no later than noon the fourth day, but the weather had it's own plan. We were socked in for six extra days with nothing left to eat but cutthroat trout. Heck, I liked trout of any kind back then, but five days of it for all three meals was tedious :x

I'd seen a couple of Spruce Chicken on a trip down to the saltwater cabin and headed down after them with my 20ga/30-30 Savage o/u, and popped one on the way down. When I got to the sea inlet I found a super low tide and much of the little bay was drained, exposing more abaloni, oysters and mussles than I ever imagined existed anywhere. :shock:

I filled a five gallon bucket found under the cabin with a mix of shelfish and carried it back through the thick coastal rainforest to our lake cabin, cursing Devil's Club all the way! :twisted:

As luck would have it, we still had an unopened tin of butter, powdered milk, flower, dehydrated chedder cheese, rotelli pasta and Romano cheese, and assorted herbs and spices, even dried garlic and tarragon...all left by previous occupants, AND TWO (2) bottles of wine from our stash. We picked some shaggy mane mushrooms and had a feast fit for a king. I made up a dish of mussles, oysters, grouse, and abalone sauteed in garlic butter, topped with a creamy cheese and wine sauce with mushrooms...AND we still had a bottle and a half of wine left after the "master chef" got done cooking and sipping. :lol:

The sky opened and the plane came in the next day to find two well fed, but hungover fishermen. :roll:

So, as you implied, sometimes adversity ain't so dam##d bad... :wink:

Black bear can vary greatly in taste depending on what/where it has been feeding, how quickly the meat was cooled, how much/little fat was removed, where the animal was shot, etc.
A bear that has been feeding heavily on meat, especially those dining at dumps, can have an unpleasant taste. I don't hunt with in 20 miles of a dump if at all possible in order to reduce this risk. The bear season where I hunted starts Sept 1st where temps can still be in the 80s. With the thick fur, insulating fat and the high temps, quickly field dressing, skinning, and cooling the meat is very important to good taste. Trimming of fat and silver skin is very important in all wild game but is much more so with bears. Though the fat can be rendered down into some of the finest baking grease, it is not very tasty attached to the meat. Also, like most wild game, it is easy to over cook the meat. The problem is bears are susceptable to trichinosis just like pigs and need to be fully cooked to kill the virus. I made a lot of burger, sausage, and roasts out of the bears I took and steaks were often fixed "Swiss" style to maintain moistness. Lastly, shot placement can be important to getting the bear to the freezer. Naturely, a gut shot is to be avoided but the proper shot can help too. Baiting is the method of choice and it allows one to wait for the right shot. I like a bear to be quartering away from me with the near leg in the forward position. This allows one to place their shot just behind the shoulder and range forward, taking out the lungs and major arteries which will drop the bear quickly. It also leaves a good blood trail which is very helpful as there is no snow to help with tracking. It also avoids the shoulder bones of the bear which can turn or break up many bullets and arrows.
Bear meat can be good tasting but does require some planning for best flavor.