Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Favorite Big Game Meat

I like all of the stuff Ive taken. The stand outs are a 3 year old bull moose from Vermont taken in 2015. And back in 2002, I shot a Sitka Blacktail on Kodiak island. that was very tasty. Really like elk and whitetail. Antelope backstraps are tops of the list too. I eat all of it. My bear was mostly sausage, but that was very good also. hell, Ill eat all of it!

Of the stuff I've taken I like the black bear from here in Michigan best, but the gator I've had from others is the best.

I like good deer sausage! Slovacek in Snook Texas makes the best I’ve eaten.

Hartmann's Mountain Zebra!!!

Antelope
Whitetail deer
Moose
Elk
Mule deer

Javalina (SUCKS) You can survive on it but it ain't gourmet................

Axis
Elk
Bison
Fallow deer
Whitetail deer
Mule deer

Wild Boar
Elk
Black Bear
Mule deer

Dall sheep.....not too much over $100/lb.

Roosevelt Elk burgers.

Adirondack Whitetail

Bison

Good Whitetail is my favorite. It is our primary meat. We have deer meat in some form four to five days a week.

Two factors that produce noticeably better tasting meat are taking the animal early in the fall, when their fat reserves are up and shots to the brain stem or thoracic spine between the shoulder blades so there is instant death.

Someone opined the taste difference was due to the hormone dump on a death run. I don’t know why, but the results are noticeable comparing deer of same age, sex, size, and same area of browse.

So table meat cuts are shot as early in the season as possible. Late season goes to the grinder mixed 60:40 deer to pork to add fat to it.

I have shot Axis four times and never been very happy with it. Might have been the particular area, but it was not good to me.

Blackbuck is excellent.

Elk is good, mule deer not so much, rattlesnake is ok, but a real pain to eat with all of the bones. After hunting in south Louisiana, first hand taste tests give the prize for absolute worst meat to Nutria, Coons, and Possums. Never again will those go on my plate unless it is the end of the world scenario. Wild turkey and ducks are edible, but so so. Goose makes wonderful gumbo.

The big green swamp frogs are fantastic when well prepared.

Elk
Mule deer
Whitetail
Antelope

Sandhill crane and specklebelly goose in there somewhere. Duck is great, but you have to know what you are doing.

How many deer are you allowed to take a year in Texas? I kill one moose a year and eat it a couple times a week with a family of 4. The meat lasts about 5 months.

Oryx is hard to beat !

I like a young White Tail Doe the best but that's what I've eaten the most of.

OAM,

the number varies by county, ranging from 1 - 5 with regular tags. Sometimes I hunt on ranches with management tags. The State issues tags to a ranch based on biologist surveys and management goals for the population in the area. Usually, there are tags going unused.

Bucks average 225 - 230# early in the season. Does are 90 - 120.

Two bucks usually are enough for my wife and me, depending how much family and friends ask for. A third provides enough to share more generously.

hanco, Lots of us South Central Texans (Germans-Czechs) make good sausage. I make my own and smoke it in small batches. I used to make 100 or more pounds at one time but now I make small batches from 10-50 pounds. It's much less work in one day and I can control the seasoning better.

Salt is the key ingredient. If you get the salt right it's gonna be edible. I use 30 ounces per 100 pounds of meat as a ratio. In other words if I make 10 pounds that's 3 oz. salt and that's counting curing salt. 4 oz of curing salt per 100 pounds of meat is the standard rule. I subtract whatever weight of curing salt I use from the 30 oz per 100 pounds meat ratio.

A lot of people making it at home don't use curing salt. I used to not but I got worried about the botulism you can get from the smoker. That's what curing salt is for, to kill the botulism that can thrive in the smoker. Being as your temperature inside the smoke house or smoker doesn't get that high you need curing salt which is Sodium Nitrite. Sodium Nitrite is used for fresh sausage. They use sodium nitrite-nitrate blend for drying sausage. I'm not an authority on dried sausage so I've never used that. But with Sodium Nitrite I know it replaces the salt about equally. In other words If I use 4 oz curing salt per 100 pounds meat then 4 oz. of the total salt will be curing salt, and 26 will be regular sodium chloride or table salt. That, by the way, is non iodized. Iodine will make it turn black. It works for me, sodium nitrite, Prague Number 1 for fresh sausage and Prague Number 2-Sodium Nitrate-Sodium Nitrite, Prague Number 2 for dried sausage. Anyway, the rest if my recipe is variable depending on what I feel like. Also, if you like hot pepper or chile as they call it, dry the chiles. If you use them fresh I've found it makes the sausage mushy. I use large jalapenos. They're generally not too hot and add a great flavor to the sausage. I also use a couple oz black pepper in 100 pounds. That's about the extent of my recipe and is pretty common in Texas style German-Czech sausage.

not to old of a cow elk that has been feeding in Alfalfa fields that i shot and butchered myself

Like many others, I do like a good antelope. However, I don't get it often as antelope tags are VERY hard to draw in Idaho. I've only drawn twice in my life, the last time being 3 years ago.

Mature Dall rams killed in July, or August. Of course it could be the element, and beauty of that sheep country you're in, along with usually digesting a fair amount of freeze dried grub for days on end leading up to the kill...;)

Second would be the Shiras moose I killed four years ago in Southwest Montana. I think I cried when we ran out of that.

Moose meat is great--except bulls during the peak of the rut.

We have taken several moose, including two in Montana--both by Eileen. (Yes, she has drawn two tags, one bull and one antlerless.) I have taken bulls both before the rut and well after in Alaska, Alberta, and British Columbia--and ALL were great.

Have eaten some other people took during the rut (which is basically the same as elk) and while it could be made edible, was not the same....