Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Taste of bighorn?

It will start to if it gets lost in the freezer for a year or more. Ask me how I know. I assure you, that package was an oversight!

Agree on sitka taste, but maintain it’s a second to sheep and axis.

Thing about goat is it can be good, and it can be not so good. Same with bou.

I’ve never had bad sheep.

My Dall sheep ram form the NWT was excellent fare. Cooked the backstraps over coals until it was medium with a little salt and pepper. The outfitter's wife had made some caribou stew that was to die for as well. My guide and i took several cans of that when we flew out to spike camp.

The first goat meat that I ate was from a big billy, not mine. It was far from good, whether the size, the shooting or the care was a factor I do not know. No comparison to subsequent goat that I've eaten. I've only killed one myself, a young billy, which was definitely in the gourmet class. Meat from two other goats that I've eaten was also excellent. Dall, to us, is a close second.

My first Dall was on a solo hunt, 18 miles backpacking from the truck. It took me two 14 hour days to get it out, and a day's drive back to Fairbanks. My nephews and niece were adamant that they weren't going to eat any of that nasty liver I fixed. I insisted they take one bite each, just to try it.

I think I got just one piece of it myself, barely.

I also had to replace the back band and both straps on my backpack. 160 # plus load wasn't good to them.

Sometimes I'm glad I'm not young anymore, especially since the foolishness hasn't abated much.

Then I think back to some of the mistakes I'd like to repeat!

las,

Recently I saw a guide pack out more than 100 pounds. I thought, no way. Then I remembered sixty years ago hiking with my 115 pound girlfriend on my shoulders. "O yea," I told myself, "that's a young men's activity."

Pretty hard to say which game is the best due to care of the meat and the cooking.

Nothing wrong with Big Horn but I don't think it stands head and shoulders above well cared for elk, antelope, caribou, black bear, Mt Lion or even whitetail.

Old Elmer thought it was “the world’s finest meat”. See Chapter 8, Page 133, last few paragraphs of Elmer’s book, “Guns & Ammo For Big Game Hunting”.

I generally can't tell the difference between deer/elk/caribou/moose/any other big game animal, assuming they were cared for the same way. I have weak taste buds I guess however a few bighorn that I have tried has had a very slight mutton taste to it. It hasn't been bad or offsetting at all, but is something I have noticed. It is nothing like rack of lamb IMO, as it is still a lean game meat.

I can say though that dall sheep (read: not bighorn) has been the most tender and non gamey game meat I have ever tried.

Exactly my experience also.

drover

Havent had the pleasure of eating bighorn yet, but Ive ate pretty much everything else and caribou sits at the top, followed by bison tenderloin, then antelope, then elk, then moose, then mule deer, then whitetail.

So did Jack O'Connor, Bighorn sheep ribs cooked over an open fire within hours of the kill. His choice of rifle calibers kin da sucked though....270's are gay.

And they sure loved hunting them!

I had rack of lamb twice. The first time I thought it was spoiled. I tried it again at a different restaurant. The same. I killed a Corsican and it was the same.

I will leave the sheep for others.

If they ever serve it at cracker barrel, I’ll order some.


With sweet whole baby carrots, hashbrown casserole and fried okra.

Your taste buds are not too weak.

The big horns and 1 desert big horn I have eaten do a very slight mutton taste. I like lamb chops so it adds a little variety.

I think caribou has a slightly different flavor that say elk but not better or worse, just a bit different.

Moose is still my favorite. Although the feral Emus we had around here several years ago ate well. We cooked one whole on a pig cooker, it was dang good.

Did you pluck the emu and cook it skin on?

I have a bud that applies for nanny/does each year and professes how good they are. I have not tried it but trust him.

Thinking back on the people adamantly claiming some particular critter was so much better than another, only to go 0 for 5, including his favorite, cracks me up.

Bighorn sheep meat is by far my favorite. I ate my 3 bighorn rams and most of my Dall ram. They taste nothing like domestic sheep. All were great and I would rate them above the elk, moose, and caribou that I've shot. My first Shiras moose tasted like a tough willow bush and I ended up grinding all of the steaks and roast into burger. My second moose I just ground the whole thing into burger. I've eaten 4 different sub-species of caribou and all were good but I would put them on par with mule deer.

The Sable filets that my PH cooked in Mozambique rate up at the top along with bighorn sheep meat.

BBQ'd rare Pronghorn Antelope filets are fit for a King.

I would rate the the meat from black bears that I've shot somewhere between elk and beef.

By far the worst wild meat that I've ever tried to eat was my Mountain goat. I wouldn't feed it to my dog. I didn't have to eat any, but when the guys were cutting up my Dagestan Tur, it smelled exactly like my mountain goat did.

I had my American buffalo commercially processed. I told them to cut the backstraps and tenderloins into 1-1 1/2 pound roasts and to grind the rest into burger. I got 495 pounds of burger and about 20 pounds of roasts. When we cooked the first roast it smelled and tasted great but we could hardly chew it. I then ground all of the roasts into burger.