Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Your wild game dining preference?

Remember that the next time someone accuses me of not playing well with others!

My hand's-down favorite game meat is Dall Sheep. Nothing, IME, is even close.

My 2nd favorite is absolutely antelope. If you get the hide off quickly and get it chilled quickly you'll always have GREAT meat.

The Alaskan Moose I've had is better than our Montana elk, but I've only had Shiras Moose once and it wasn't as good as the AK Moose I've eaten.

4th favorite would be elk, but only spikes or younger. Elk calf is fabuous, and I'd put it ahead of moose. Old bulls and cows are tasty, but TOUGH!

5th favorite would be Nilgai.

Grey Squirrel is good, especially chicken-fried.

Deer... bleh.

Bison is great but I really don't consider it game meat. Here it can be bought over the counter nearly everywhere, and it's served in most of our restaurants.

Sam,

If you're sick of the pellets in the pheasant, just upsize to #2 shot. It blows clean through them and I've never had a pellet stuck in the meat, even from rear-end long-range shots.

We eat almost exclusively deer and elk. I don't get tired of either. Throw in some grouse once in a while and we are set. My wife's moose she got this year makes some darn fine burgers.

My all time favorite is calf elk steak cooked up in a generous amount of butter heaped all around with a big pile of morel mushrooms, then topped off with a piece of good swiss cheese. Don't know where my wife came up with the cheese topper but it sure ties it all together quite nicely. Dam, now i'm hungry.

I agree that store bought beef can't hold a candle to home grown.

I'm kinda' partial to just grass fed. Takes a little longer to finish them though.

Hard to choose a favorite. But the top contenders in no particular order would be-

Yearling white tail

Bacon wrapped quail

Pheasant

Yearling elk

Squirrel

Rabbit

I haven't had moose, sheep and lots of the more exotic things. However, I enjoy most game meat. While I can eat it, I am just not as big a fan of pronghorn as many folks. On the last one I killed, I had much of it made into summer sausage. I gave a roll of it to my aunt and she was incredulous! "You did what? Don't you EVER use a good antelope for summer sausage again! That's what nasty old deer are for!" It made me laugh because I really like nasty old deer! Several people I know do like pronghorn better than deer. I don't. Don't tell me it is because I don't handle the meat correctly, because I do.

My absolute favorite is fried turkey breast!

Never got to try Dall sheep but I've heard it's excellent.

Of course if some of y'all that live in areas where you can hunt them want to pack some in dry ice and send it to Arkansas...

I'll be happy to send a gallon of honey back in return.

Just had favorite for supper--
Fresh venison tenderloin (killed on Wed)
Homemade mac & cheese
Salad
Fresh bread
Iced tea

I like most any that I have tried but currently my favorites are antelope and whitetail. I haven't had elk in so long I forget what it tasted like but I remember liking it. I used to eat a lot of pheasant and liked it. Duck really seemed to depend on what they had been eating and sometimes you couldn't tell until that first bite. I definitely think that the individual animal varies a lot too and there is a mental aspect to enjoying what you have worked for yourself-they always taste better...to you.
One I could never get to enjoy was woodcock. I used to shoot one occasionally early pheasant hunting in swampy areas. Never could even pretend to enjoy it.

Dall sheep is my favorite, but I have 2 friends that hate it. One grinds it into Jalapeno/cheese dogs, and can barely stomach those.

Sitka blacktail would probably be second, with columbia blacktail closely following, though it has been a while since I've had the latter.

I'd put moose next.

I like elk pretty well. Have only had the Roosevelt variety, but it was good.

After moose it gets pretty tricky. Have not had a bad black bear, but would not be terribly surprised if I did. It is tough, and doesn't lend itself to grilling, but is good as roasts.

I had good caribou a couple of times, but in general I'd rather not eat it...which is why I don't really hunt caribou.

One of the most disgusting things I've ever tried to eat was whitetail, and it was prepared in order to mask the flavor. I'm glad to hear that some people like it and hopefully that means that I got an outlier.

Anything you are wrapping in bacon probably wasn't any good to start with, although moose bacon is pretty tough to argue with.

It's interesting what one may find delightful another would barf. I won't kill what I won't eat. I plan to go on an Antelope hunt next season and find out what they taste like.

I love a variety of game meats, but it is hard to beat hanging loins grilled or flash fried in onions...

30 years ago I married a gal who couldn't boil water without calling her mom for help.
The girl has turned into a terrific cook, and particularly excels with all sorts of game. Loves to experiment...

I grew up in a family where we literally "lived" on wild game. We seldom ever ate beef and what pork we ate as generally from wild hogs.

Normal fare included rabbit, squirrel, deer, hogs, ducks, quail, doves, fish and various reptiles (turtle, snake, alligator and such). Basically we ate anything that walked, swam, flew or crawled....depending on what came along when we were in the woods.

I liked it all and still do. The "secret" to cooking wild game of any kind is to understand that most of it is very lean. Dry cooking methods will ruin most wild game.....it must be cooked in a way that doesn't dry out the meat. I like deer, elk, pronghorn and moose, but you can not treat it like grain-fed beef. There just isn't enough fat content to prevent toughness and dry meat without some added fat to the recipe. Game birds are much the same.

Wild game does have a distinctive flavor (which I like) and cannot be made to taste like beef. Attempt to make wild game into beef will never work and guarantee failure and disappointment.

I've eaten some strange stuff over the years and mostly liked it all. Some more than others. Possum I've tried baked, fried, stewed and every other way you can imagine......and it was never really great.....edible, but hardly something I'd deliberately seek out. Some were surprisingly good. Never ate Mountain Lion, but have ate quite a bit of Bobcat (when I was running a trap line). It was great....mild, white and tender. Alligator was disappointing. No flavor and bland.

Snake was good....if plain....except Moccasin, which was terrible.

Wild game is great....but it has to be treated like it is not like beef

In order of preference
Wild Sika deer from maryland
Young elk
Any other elk that has been cared for properly
Antelope shot while rested and cared for properly
rabbit
Ruffed grouse
White tailed deer

My list of do not even bother eating
Antelope that were run around a bit or not skinned and cooled quick
Most mule deer
Duck
Any goose
old bull bison,not much flavor and pretty tough chewing.

Just my tastes others may vary

im sure you can run into a bad one but generally speaking with speed goats, they can either be some of the best tasting or worst tasting game you ever had depending how you treat them.....find some that havent been run, kill them clean, get the hide off and the meat cooled down fast and its damn good eats, real mild meat....run one or leave the hide on while it bounces around in the back of your pickup for a day or two and its quite possible your dog wont eat it

IIRC part of the reason for them being milder is they mature into trophy animals much quicker than deer do, a mature trophy speed goat is usually a couple years younger than a mature trophy whitetail....also the older animals are more easily killed off in a bad winter as they carry no body fat and pretty much have to constantly eat to live....

Moose.
WT.
Smoked goose.
Squirrel.

I am really quite partial to Russian wild boar. Used to hunt them and get the hams double smoked. Very nice. I can't believe they're considered vermin in the southern U.S.
I got a young whitetail doe from the neighbors tree stand just last week with my bow. From the time it was shot through the lungs to hanging was 2 hours. Just butchered it and wrapped it yesterday. It should be good.
Unfortunately, I will probably be the only one eating it. Too many people with taste biases. Oh well!!

My deer finally thawed out and I just ate a literal pound of post-rut whitetail tenderloin, bloody rare.


Grade AAA delicious.

And I just snarfed down a batch of fried squirrel, pierogies, and squirrel gravy...my favorite meal....