Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Small Game Anyone eat woodchuck.

Just wondering I shot one yesterday that's been burrowing under my porch. I probably should have done something with it besides toss it over the fence. But I didn't have time to try to clean it and didn't want to leave it around in the heat. It was this years and may have had as much meat as a rabbit but I doubt it

Don't know about woodchucks but prairie dogs could carry bubonic plague. Therefor we never even touched them much less ate them.

When I was a kid, we tried it. My grandmother was not much of a game cook.. Pretty tough. However in the previous generation, people often ate chucks. Until left my childhood home, I shot chucks each summer and hauled them home and gave them to my neighbors they ate them all. Eating wild game was much more common when I was a kid than now. Probably the last generation that will do that.

Fine delicacy if cooked right skin it gut it quarter it and throw it in the crock pot about the only way better than beef

The hide makes good banjo strings

I have, but ain’t especially looking to repeat the experience. The hide is very tough, the meat as I recall similar to pork or chicken thighs.

Will re-evaluate if (when) everything goes to Hell.

The OP’s would probably have been as good as they get.

The way this world is going you may find it on your plate sooner than you think

My Grandma told me that during the Great Depression, her father shot raccoons and woodchucks and cooked them. Deer were poached beyond belief during that time and seldom seen

My wife can cook a mean ground hog for “select” people’s I’ve killed and ate for the “select” but have not reached the grand almighty point where it’s been passed to my home plate

Soaked in salt water awhile, par boiled, fried.
It's food. There's better.

Young of the year woodchuck is good. I've eaten a good many. Woodchuck liver is excellent. Much better than calf, beef or deer liver.

I’ve ate several. Hard to find one young enough to fry. Like someone said maybe parboil it. We used to just cook them like a roast. An old hunter friend of mine that done a lot of cooking and eating wild meat would take a big roaster pan and put a ground hog a pound of bacon and some cream of mushroom soup and chicken broth and bake it till tender and that was some fine eating. That bacon have it a great flavor and added some needed fat to the mix.

I've got one tunneling under my barn that I need to ambush. Never tried eating any groundhog. I guess I could try it once. Free cat food if I don't like it.

I have a yard full of rabbits and squirrels I’ve been fattening up with sunflower seeds, corn, and dropped fruit. They think I'm their friend. Come SHTF- 😋

Have heard of using groundhog and cat skins for Banjo heads but not strings. In damp weather you would never keep it in tune.

I've eaten ground woodchuck, an 80/20 mix of 'chuck meat and beef fat. It tasted about like any ground wild game meat that I've eaten after it had been mixed with beef fat and cooked on a grill. It would probably make good chili filler meat too.

Grandparents ate it often and always said it was the younger ones they used - I have yet to try one but do intend to do so when the “right” circumstances arise (i.e. have a way to cool it down and keep it cool once shot)…..can’t imagine they’d be “bad” considering their diet and no bubonic plague to worry about with them.

PennDog

Tried liver too, gave it to some under teenage kids and they all loved it! Can't remember how I cooked it as it was about 55 yrs. ago.

Hip

Around the end of June the young of the year would be just big enough. Used to par boil then BBQ, ground up the bigger ones and use for spagetti sauce. With the small farms dissapearing, and the coyotes moved in don't see many anymore. I would crockpot now. Check under the armpits for little glands that look like a corn kernel and cut them off.

Groundhog makes good BBQ. Several of us killed several groundhogs and took them to my neighbor, who fixed it for the July 4th neighborhood get together. We never told anybody it was groundhog, so they ate it and liked it.

Never ate one, and don't plan on it, but the old Black folks here would go crazy over them.

Southern friends cooked one, looked like a fetus in the pan. Tasted pretty good.

Cooked up a big one a few years back.

I've ate all sorts of "weird" things. It was by far the worst.

I keep meaning to try a young one.

Did you guys who didn't like it remove the glands from the front armpits? Makes a difference.

When I was a kid my Grandpa told me they had eaten them ,amongst a lot of other stuff too Ha

Not until we run out of crickets

At Bar-B-Q'ed chuck once, at a sportsman meeting. I would rather eat an old pair of Shaq's Chuck Taylor Allstars than repeat it.

When I was a youngster in 58-60 time frame growing up in SW PA, the local Moose chapter in a little town where my boy lives now had an annual ground hog fete. Anyone who killed one would bring it in cleaned and into the freezer. It was OK, but not impressive.

had a older black nurse tell me the same thing woodchuck is the best meat to eat . i have always wondered ?

I never have but it is a vegetable eating rodent. It's probably pretty good, or at least no worse than rabbit, nutria, muskrat or squirrel.

I shot a young one sunning itself on a tree limb in November. I called a friend of mine and he dressed it and cooked it. He told me not to bring him anymore.

When going to college in SW Missouri I always enjoyed shooting them and then putting them on to BBQ. There was never a shortage of people wanting more

Until I moved to VA, a couple years ago, I ate them, mostly ones that got close enough to shoot off the front porch. Shoot young ones with a 22, head shot. Get them skinned right away. Its usually hot out and you want them cleaned and cooled off quickly. I cook them like squirrels, same recipes. The hide is pretty tight, like squirrels and they taste like squirrels to me. I've even had them cooked with kraut.
Enjoy
Bfly

We used to make tough boot laces from the hide of big ones.

Dispatched several on my property but never thought of lunching on them.
Agreed that may be good SHTF chow!

IrvingD: I have eaten Rock Chuck - yearlings are best as I recall.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Never ate one. But my grandma always said she'd cook me one if I got her a small one. Not a big one. She said she had cooked a bunch of them. But she said, "You have to par boil them in (baking) soda water, first".

I don’t have any personal experience but have heard many times that they have the best tasting liver of any known beast. Or some such unknowable accolade

No woodchucks around here, just whistle pigs.

Have tried it twice.
First one was good eating. The second, not so much.
They like my garden, so I will do it again someday.

Same here. A worker at the Ford garage as a kid would gladly pay $1 each for young groundhogs that weren’t shot up bad for the table.

The bald eagles seem to like them.

I guess a woodchuck is the same thing as a groundhog?

I saw a news video on it years ago... how it was Appalachia food back in rough times and still eaten today. In that video they did like 3 types / levels of cooking it if I recall correctly. Ended up as stew after a lengthy process. You might be able to find the video if you search for it.

Never ate it myself. My grandpa ate everything back in the day. He told me young ones weren’t bad but old fat ones were just about too much. He was not squeamish about food but clearly had no desire to eat it again. It made me not bother to try one. Groundhog fit into the category of food that made him say, “it beats a snowball.”

Hearing how tough they had it when he was coming up always gave me an appreciation for how fortunate I am.

I wonder how much woodchuck a woodchuck eater would chuck up.

yea i still eat them , throw them in the crock pot ..grew up in West Virginia in the late 60's- early 80's eating them granpa and dad would shoot them and granma would roll in flour fry it . when i was old enough to shoot them mom would par boil them ,then bake them with ketchup and ramps on top.... Ramps another Appalachian delicacy yum yum .

I remember trying it years ago at a game dinner and I think it was prepared primarily like a stew. It was okay.

I was wondering about eating them yesterday and spotted a rock chuck on my way home. Wondered what that would be like!

Growing up on a farm where we raised soybeans, woodchucks were vermin. We killed them anyway we could. Dad didn't let me have a 22 so shotgun, shovel, hoe whatever was handy. And we never even thought about eating one even though we ate rabbits and pheasants. Deer if Dad got one.

Years later I married a southern gal. Her family ate those groundhogs. Mother in law wanted to fry up some young ones that I shot at home. I didn't really want to but I skinned them and she pan fried them. The first couple of bites I had to choke down, but after I tasted them, they were good. Not much different than a rabbit. They always baked the old ones, and as someone said, glands under the front legs had to be removed.

I would but never got around to trying one, but know some that have eaten them many times. All the folks I've ever heard talk about them agree that the old ones aren't worth fooling with, hard times only. But would readily prepare & eat young ones when given the opportunity.

He would chuck up as much woodchuck as a woodchuck eater could chuck up, if a woodchuck eater could chuck up woodchuck.