Does anyone here eat groundhogs? I tried a couple years ago and what I remember most was that skinning one seemed about as easy as skinning your average steel-belted radial. I seem to recall that the meat was somewhat like dark-meat chicken.

I once read an outdoor newspaper column by, I believe, Gerald Almy, in which he stated that groundhog liver was wonderful eating. Not long after that, I walked into a barbershop where the barber was describing how he killed chucks just for the liver. I asked him how he cooked them and he said, "COOK 'EM? I use them for catfish bait!"

The young ones are pretty good eating, kind of like beef in flavor sort of between beef and squirrel (which kind of makes sense when you think about it). The old ones are just tough as shoe leather and your tire comparison is about right.

They do make good catfish bait.

A former in-law was running a ranch in Oregon back in the early 90's. They hired a nice Laotian family to help out on the ranch and learn the cattle business.

A couple months after they were hired, the husband asked for a .22 to control the "squirrels" around the family's home. My in-law gave him a .22 LR, and said have at it...thinking he was going after the ground squirrels in the cow pastures where he worked.

A couple more months pass, and the Laotian family invites the in-laws, ranch staff, and all to their home for a traditional Laotian meal as a "thank you" for the home, the welcome, and helping get on their feet.

One of the main dishes is a egg roll type with rolls about the size of small burritos. After several Americans had tried the rolls, the meat in them was still unidentified by several diverse members present. My in-law finally queried the husband on the meat, and how he had obtained so much of it for the meal.

Through broken English, the husband very sincerely thanked the in-laws for the ability to shoot the "large squirrels" in the rock piles by the river, and to provide the meat for everyone to enjoy...

I tried them once when i was young and i didn't like them , just to greasy when baked

Be sure to remove the glands under the forelegs, otherwise they will be gamy. My neighbor made BBQ out of them.

Ate some BBQ'd groundhog once. Only once. Even the BBQ sauce was tough.

Here I go, Is a woodchuck a rockchuck?

Kawi,
What up Dog?
You've been missed.
Glad to see you post.
Take care.
Slave

No, but very close cousins in the same family of marmots.

one lives under the ground and the other under a rock , what more can you say?

As was said before, young woodchucks make for good eating. And if you like liver, woodchuck is the best there is. Better than beef, calf, pork or deer liver.

At home on the farm we considered them vermin as they ate our freshly sprouted soybeans. We killed them with anything we could and a couple got terminated with a shovel. Dad wouldn't let me have a .22 and the 410 usually wasn't handy, hence the shovel.

Anyway, my wife is from KY and her mother fried up some young woodchucks, or ground hogs, whistlepigs, as they call them. The first few bites I had to kind of chew fast and swallow, but after that they were quite tasty. Not strong tasting. My BIL cleans the older ones real good, and as Leon said, remove the glands, and bakes them. I have had them and they are good too. Never did try the livers though.

Beer has that way,grin

Stick to the young ones. Females are your best eating, males can get strong. Remove the glands and soak in vinegar water over night. Some good eating there when made right. I cook a lot up and feed them to the dogs. Cheap dog food.

Grandpa thought they were vermin because his cattle stepped into the holes they dug and broke their legs. So, he gassed them in their holes as soon as he spotted them and located all the entrances. Sport was what you had with quail and a 16 ga. double.

We have rock chucks here in eastern Oregon. A recipe in a sheepherders cook book suggests one simply gut them, insert some celery, carrots, and spuds in the body cavity, stitch them up, and bury the critter hair and all in a good pile of hot ashes for an hour. Peel off the rind and have at them.

Or skip the fire and veggies and just bury it.

Kinda like the recipe for planked bluefish: Nail a big bluefish filet to a hardwood plank, season with salt, pepper, lemon, and butter. Place upright next to a good bed of hot coals. When the fish begins to flake, throw it away and eat the plank.

I have eaten one woodchuck roasted with barbecue sauce that was delicious. It was prepared by a southern family down the street.

I will say bluefish that is promptly bled, dressed and iced, especially smaller harbor blues (less than 3 or 4 pounds) are delicious as well.
Pretty much any fish caught and left out without proper dressing and icing tastes awful.

We have plenty of groundhogs here in Pennsylvania. My Mom roasted young ones with potatoes, onions, and carrots when I was kid. They're pretty good eatin'.

Sherwood

The bluefish recipe was a joke. I actually like it pretty well, even the big ones. During the 70s, there was a peak in the bluefish cycle and we really used to hammer them in the Chesapeake. My uncles had an old 26' Trojan that we rebuilt from the gunnels up (also the transom). We ran out of Bert Lamb's in Chesapeake Beach and generally trolled homemade surgical hose eels for the blues. The most we caught was about 60 and the biggest I landed went 14 lbs. We fried the small ones and baked the big ones. Slow-baked bluefish is pretty tasty, actually. The blues were almost considered a trash fish, as people preferred the rockfish. Now it's all expensive. Blues are also very good (and expensive) smoked.