Taste of Ground Hogs

[hunter78]

I would like to start off saying that I love reading everyone post on their hunting trips, but one of the people that I really love to read their posts are longislands hunting stories. I've read about several people taking groundhogs, my question is are they good eating, how do you prepare them, and would you field dress them just like you would a squirrel. Keep on sending those interesting stories!

[longislandhunter]

As you know from reading my posts I eat the ground hogs that I shoot and I really enjoy them,,, so do my two daughters. The younger ones are of course much more tender than the older ones so I usually use the older ones to make ground hog pot roast or stew. Matter of fact my daughters favorite wild game meal is ground hog pot roast.

As for the smaller ones,,, I've fried them, bar-b-q'd them and broiled them and each method yielded good results. I have to admit though that the g-hog pot roast is my absolute favorite !!

As for cleaning them,,,,, just clean out the entrails as you would any game animal, skin them, cut off the feet then cut them into smaller pieces for cooking. They can be a little hard to skin until you get the knack of it, but if you use a very sharp skinning knife to help you separate the skin from the meat it goes very quickly. Once you get the hang of it it'll only take you a couple of minutes to skin them.

Give em a try,,, I think you'll be surprised just how good they are.....

Jeff

[Jaymo]

I've always wondered about this myself. Sure wish we had them in GA. I do know that barbecued beaver is good. Yes, I said it. I like to eat beaver.I hear you snickering. Get your minds out of the gutter. Of course, I've never shot a beaver with a pellet gun. Just with .22 mag(OK) and .223(much better)

Jeremy,that is one of the funniest posts I've read in some time.........YES MY MIND IS ABSOLUTELY IN THE BEAVER....I MEAN GUTTER..HE HE HE.......

[hunter78]

yeah Jaymo I sure wish that we had them in Georgia too, seems like they'll be great according to Jeff. I must say Jaymo you caught me a little off guard there that was very funny, needed that. But you said that beaver is good (yes the animal) ha ha! What taste will you compare them both to Beaver and Groundhogs?

[Gene_SC]

There are several large ponds that are fed by streams within a25 miles radiusof me. When I had permission to shoot in those area's a couple years agon, I saw lots of beaver. They make very large wakes in the ponds swimming from shore to shore. If I had to estimate by there head size, I would say they would weigh in at around 20 plus lbs. Maybe I a wrong but they did look big. Never did see them out of the water. Gene

[longislandhunter]

The property that I have in upstate NY (catskill mountains) has a good sized trout stream at the base of it and there are several large beaver dams and ponds in several locations on the stream. On a few occasions, usually very early in the morning or very late in the afternoon, I've had the pleasure of standing quietly on the stream bank and watched the beavers, some of them quite large, swimming around, working ont he dams and cutting down trees. Beautiful animals to watch. I never shot at any of em, never had a reason to, but I did have a dog that loved to jump in the water and chase em around the ponds. It was a blast to watch :) of course the dumb dog never even had a chance :)

Gene, you are correct,, they do get pretty large. Some of the ones I saw on my property looked like they easily went 20 pounds...

Wanna hear a funny beaver story????  Well,, years ago I was standing in among some timber along the bank of the stream with a friend of ours named Arnold who owned and ran a dairy farm right up the road from us. I was showing Arnold a tree that a beaver had cut down. The reason I was showing it to him was that the trunk of the tree had been chewed through about 6 feet above the ground. I had just finished telling him that the beaver that had chewed this tree down must've been absolutely HUGE when I suddenly realized he was looking at me with this strange look on his face. It was then that he pointed out to me, with a smirk on his face, that the tree had been felled during the middle of the winter and that HUGE beaver I was imagining was in reality a normal sized beaver that had been standing on top of 4 feet of snow while chewing on the tree. Boy did I feel STUPID !! Arnold just laughed that wonderful laugh he had and he took great pleasure re-telling that story for many years. Arnold has since past on but every time I see anything relating to a beaver I think back to that day and smile...

Jeff

[Gene_SC]

Now that was funny Jeff..:)  Sounds like something I would of said when I was  younger..:) Ya those beavers are fun to watch. I would also sit quietly on the bank behind some brush and watch them going back and fourth. I never could figuer out what they were doing because there was only one inlet into most of these ponds from a stream. Maybe they were getting mud from the banks and taking it back where they had damed up the stream in several places. It is quite interesting how they block the streams up. Do they block the streams in order to catch fish?..:) I really do not know the answer. hehe

Gene

[longislandhunter]

It's my understanding that they almost exclusively eat the bark of the saplings and trees that they cut down.  Matter of fact they store their food supply underwater so that it's readily available during the cold of the winter when the pond is frozen over.  As for the fish,,,, we always had good trout fishing in our stream, but since the beaver created those ponds the fishing is simply amazing.....   We also have a large number of waterfowl that inhabit the stream now,, and we never had that before.   I think the beavers have made the entire area much more attractive to just about every critter in the area.....

Jeff

[Gene_SC]

Thanks Jeff..:) I feel dumb... hehe

Gene

[Big_Bill]

Hey Guys,

I helped an Unclefarmer in Maine out for one summer, and he trapped Beavers for additional revenue.

They dam streams, creeksand small rivers to build their dens in safe protected deep water, so that their families will be safe from predators like fox, wolves, bears, etc.

They are the a rodent, and grow from 30 - 60 pounds ! Note, a RODENT. They are herbivores, plant eaters.

And when I encountered one underwater, I thought that I was about to die, they look like a bear underwater. Luckily, for me, I survived...

And as I remember they taste like roast beef . And Ground hogs, also a very large rodenttaste like possum, sort of.

Bill

Hey Gene,

Beavers live in a structure called a lodge.  Made of sticks and mud, kinda like an igloo.  The entrance is underwater, then goes "uphill" to a chamber in the centre of the lodge.  Typically about 10' diameter or so, the whole lodge.

They dam the streams mostly to make a pond which helps protect the lodge.  The high water keeps the entrance underwater, so most animals can't find it.  The water also keeps most land predators away.

Jeff's right about their food, almost exclusively tree bark and green twigs.  Yum.

They're quite the engineers, really.  I've explored dams that were 200+ feet long, and almost 10' high at their best.  Most of the time they don't get much higher than 4 or 5', but that's still alot of water to hold back with sticks 'n' mud.  The lodge structure is strong enough that a black bear cannot collapse it.

The best trout fishing I've done has always involved beaver improved waterways!

J

[longislandhunter]

All this talk has me itchin to try some. Roast Beef ,,, huh,,, I never would've guessed that :)

I'll have to look into the trapping regs up where my summer home is,,,, never really did any trapping but I've always had a hankering to get into it.... Maybe I'll give it a shot this year...... Then I could make some beaver for dinner :)

Jeff

[only1harry]

I agree Bill, the only 2 beavers I have seen in real life in the wild, were around 25-30lbs if I had to guess.. about twice the size of a large groundhog.

[Big_Bill]

Hey Jeff,

My uncle set his traps underwater, deep enough for the Beaver to drown in, if you trap them above ground, they will chew their leg off, and you will never them.

The pelts had some value back then, I have no idea what a good pelt would fetch today.

And my aunt wasa greatcook, I don't remember a meal that I just didn't love. She made the best snapping turtle soup in the world ! She would cook up anything we brought home, and make a fine meal of it...

Bill