I'm starting to look at bison "hunts" and haven't settled on my primary goal - a big trophy bison vs. a meat bison. Most of the people I've contacted have suggested the only thing the meat from an older trophy bull is good for is burger. I would love to shot a big bison but don't want 700 lbs of ground bison. Is a trophy bison really too tough for steaks and roast or is this another story passed around without a whole lot of truth to it?

Scott

Drive out in the country until you find a beef farm. Drive in and ask the farmer if he was going to butcher an animal for himself if he would butcher a young heifer or steer or an old bull.

The steaks and roasts can be made edible but not enjoyable like a prime critter. The testosterone in the bull keeps it fit and buff and no fat means no flavor and chewy.

Shoot an eater and buy a big head for the wall...best of both worlds.

Nope...not an exxageration..be ready to eat LOTS of burger if you shoot a "trophy"

I shot this one and the eating was excellent and tender, it just depends

SWJ,

The meat on a big, mature bull can be good, but should be aged for a while for the steaks and roasts to become reasonably tender. A lot of people don't bother to do this, partly because they don't have a place to do it, or don't want to pay a commercial operation to do it.

That said, the meat from a younger bull will usually be rated better by most people, partly because it doesn't take much aging to become tender.

SWJ, I killed a cow. The meat is delicious and the hide was in prime. The hide on a cow in prime is as soft as merino. Take it in late November or early Decmber before the winter solstice and the hide will be at its best. Rather have a super soft cow robe that I can actually use than a head on a wall.

MD:

I had thought some dry aging would help but hadn't taken my research far enough to fing out how much it would cost to age something as big as a bison. How long 7-10 days or 60 days like the high end beef?

I am going to show my inexperience here, but are all the bison essentially grass fed, pastured animals or are there places were the bison are grain feed and raised like commercial beef? I am already struggling with calling this a hunt on the ones that are pasture raised and wouldn't want to shot one just off the feed lot.

Scott

ET:

The plan for the meat bison was a skull mount and tanning the hide.

I doubt one will be all I take in my lifetime, God willing, so I'm trying to not get too caught up. I just couldn't see 700 lbs of ground bison as the only option.

Scott

When I lived in Nebraska, we harvested a couple of old bulls that had been kicked out of the herds. We took another old one down here from a relict herd that has a disputed history (another long story). The meat from all of them was superior to the steers that we cut out and fed for the commissary.

Aging certainly helps (we could just hang them in the skin in northern Nebraska). Down here, took the shoulders and the hind quarters, along with the tenderloins and backstraps, and hung them in the cooler for ten days. We ground everything else right away, wrapped it and put the ground meat in the cooler along with everything else.

No one ever complained about the quality of the bison that they were fed, and some of those folks were accustomed to getting their protein at high end New York venues.

I got 250 lbs of meat from a 1000 lb cow, Believe me, a cows robe from one killed at primetime is amazing. Verify through DocRocket,Jorge and Elkhunter 76. Also verify that the roasts,steaks AND burger (and I had some buffler salami made too) is fantastic vittles.

Absoutely what ET says. I'd like to shoot a trophy bull as well, but it seems the concensus here is that bull meat won't be as tender and needs to be aged at least ten days?

I would say 10 days would be a good starting point. A lot depends on the age of the bull, diet and other specifics. The meat of trophy bison isn't as predictable as that of a 2-year-old Angus steer.

One example I'll use isn't from a bison, but it's the same basic deal. A couple of years ago I killed my biggest bull elk in mid-November. The weather was just right for aging, especially inside my shop, which tends to even out daily highs and nightly lows. We aged the meat for 10 days or so and then started trying it. It was OK but still much tougher than meat from a raghorn.

So we cut off a chunk of backstrap and put it in the refrigerator. Every day or two I'd cut off an inch-thick steak and cook it medium-rare. Not much changed for more than another week, and then suddenly the meat started getting more tender. After three weeks we finally butchered it, and the old bull turned out to be very good eating. His meat would still never be mistaken for a raghorn's, but he was GOOD.

The problem with aging an older bison is where to do it. They take up a lot or space, and that costs moneyin a commercial locker plant--the saem reason that aged beef costs more than supermarket beef.

It seems to me that there is the other problem besides were to age it, is what to do with it all once it is aged to your liking? Being by myself, one of the problems I have run into over the years is storage, yea I have a freezer in fact at one time I had three. I found that anything more that 200 lbs of meat at any one time tends to freezer burn on me. I just can't eat it fast enough in most years. I been using a vac packing the last couple of seasons and that has been working real well, nothing yet spoiled due to freezer burn. I personally could not deal with the mountain of meat you would get off of a Bison either the small ones or the big Woodland versions. Heck the last moose I shot I kept just a quarter and the rest I gave to the locals where I shot it. And it was still more than I could eat in a year. How do you guys deal with it? Nobody seems to talk much about it, rifles and bullet yep. Nothing much about meat and storage.

a couple of years ago i shot about a four year old bull near cortez colorado, in november, yellowjacket to be exact. He was estimated at about 1400pounds. Head is hanging on the wall in my office, and the hide was processed with hair for a robe/blanket. At that time of the year the pelt was outstanding as is the head. As i remember, imperfect, i got about three hundred or so pounds off of him, they are heavy boned creatures, that head weighed a ton, as did the pelt.
Took him to a butcher slaughterhouse i knew in prescott where they hung him for about ten days or so before processing. Finest kind of meat. On this ranch it is really a alfalfa farm, so i knew what he lived on. It isn't free range hunting, but don't underestimate it. Buff are pretty ticked when one of their fellows goes down. I have some great pictures of a herd chasing a friend of mine in a gator with a buff chained to the back going full blast to get away from them. They are still dangerous animals. I shot mine in a pasture but again there was some risk to it, as it wasn't a corral and there were other buff running around. And we picked up mine, a couple of guys were ready with rifles all the time.
I might add if you want the name of the guy who owns the ranch, email me. Highly recommend him, and several have been back since to take a few more. He has a herd of about 150 or so.
Cost at the time from memory was about 2k.

I gotta add i don't know what i like more. Love those burgers, but had a steak the other night and was licking the plate.
For diabetics like me, it is particularly good meat.

Ron, the hump roast from mine was outta this world good!! My wife HATES to eat anything that I have "murdered" but she LOVES buffler!!!

I have taken one bison, and my wife one as well. Neither were trophies (mine was a 3-year-old bull, my wife's a mature cow) but even then we shared the meat. Even a cow is a LOT of meat.

I have shot some buffalo and been part of eating even more. There are only a couple things to remember:

#1 Tropies are for mounting

#2 Young buffalo are for eating.

That doesn't mean you can't eat a trophy, but you will spend more time eating it, and it isn't just because there is more meat...


Mount/burger...



Mount/burger



Eat...

I'll take another tack on this discussion.

Hunt Custer State Park in the Black Hills for a gagger bull that you can hang on the wall and place high in the B&C Book. Then, SELL your bison's carcass to a Rapid City processor for 90 cents a pound and receive a check for $850.

THEN.....buy tender cuts of bison steaks, roasts, and burger taken from young buffalo.....enough to fill every cooler in the back of your pick-up. AND, you still have enough cash left over to buy a couple cases of Meridian pinot noir to drink with your meals. Talk about culinary heaven!

Now dats an idea!

I thought you didn't like wine...

So, what do you do with one of these fine "robes" anyway?

The meat would be great, as would the skull mount on the wall, and it would likely be an interesting experience. What to do with the "robe" though?

dawaba - I think you've got this pretty well figured...

I've wanted a buffalo mount for many years. It's kind of a western heritage thing. So when I killed my buffalo, I picked out an old bull with good hair. He made a great mount. My taxidermist also bleached the skull and put fiberglass horns on it. It's another western heritage thing.

I had a local meat shop that processes a lot of buffalo process the meat. I told them to make the straps and loins into roasts and to grind the rest into burger. I got 500 lbs of burger and a box of roasts. That was fine because we eat more burger than roasts and steaks anyway.

When we cooked the first package of the roasts, it smelled and tasted great, but it was about as chewy as his hoofs. So I thawed out the rest of the roasts, fine ground them, and made some great tasting buffalo jerky.

Eaten them all and loved every stinkin bite....prime stuff there!

It gits plenty chilly in our Adirondack hunting camp. From Sep. through December I spend 3 day weekends and one 9 day trip up there along with occasional forays in the winter. Buffler robe would be PLENTY warm!!