This is a very fair question for a person to ask. When we think of wild game, and people use words like succulent, juicy, deep flavor- our minds start rolling into slabs of elk and slices of venison; a fillet of walleye, a striper or salmon steak. We think of dove wrapped in bacon, and sautéed duck and rabbit.

But to many hunters, when we say 'stringy, tough, dry, rooty tasting, muddy, and heavy....... folks blech a bit, and thoughts of black bear done up wrong, muddy water catfish, un-clean clams, ruddy ducks, spoonies, hogs and javelinas, and dried out venison from a western mule deer.

There is no sense in telling you how to make a walleye taste better. This, my friends is an EASY answer. Another cold beer. What else can I say? An Iowa white tail, taken in the late fall, with the cold on the ground of an impending winter gives that heavy, fat laden buck the best of God's advantages in turning a wild beast into a meal one will never forget. A mallard eating grass is almost too good to be true.

On the other hand....... someone, somewhere thought eating a possum or raccoon would be a good idea. 'Tweren't ME!! But I DO hunt the deserts, and some swamps. So I have a good idea of what helps make an otherwise piece of boot leather edible.
(A tequila to go with that beer would be a good start. Or, in the south, a stiff bourbon. But I digress; I do not drink anymore, so I have turned to less simple solutions to the problem at hand. )
Fish: Heavy water fish, strong flavored white meat creatures. The thing to do is to fillet and skin the slab. Now, the lateral line is the line that runs down the center of a fish along the side. It carries many nerve bundles by which the fish senses things in water. It also is the path for blood to run down the side of the fish. On a white meat fish (On ANY fish with heavy flavor, from Tuna to Amberjack as well) shave off the center of this darkest meat. Cut at a shallow V, but cut wide, and you don't need to go super deep in many cases. After you remove the worst of the dark meat, get a small tray of cold milk. Set the fillets in there, or chunk the fish up and set the chunks in the milk. In the fridge, or an ice chest for about 1/2 hr. to 1hr. It will draw out much of the heavy flavors left. The quality of the meal will be MUCH improved.
For dark meat, big game fish (Marlin, tuna, AJ) Cut out the bloodline. Soak the fillets in salty cold water for 1/2 hr.
For saltwater fish, try to not use fresh water much on the fillets. It leeches out flavor and the meat reacts badly, discoloring and losing good flavors.

Next post: Things that die when they fly....

Part 2. Birds of a feather:

Wild turkey might be considered tough meat, and often are considered on the dry side. Flavor is universally hailed as very good, so the key is to keep it moist when cooking. Or, makem into sausage. To keep moist:
1. Dunk in a deep fryer. Pre-season, lightly stuff the interior, inject some seasonings, and drown the bird. Many beers may be needed to put out a grease fire. I HIGHLY recommend you do not filter said beer thru kidneys for the fire suppression effort; it will render the bird inedible.
2. A wet stuffing and a good foil wrap will hold in moisture well, and keep the bird from drying out when baked.
3. Sliced thin, or stripped when raw and skillet sautéed with some corn and greens to make a southern stir fry. keep it covered, and don't overcook. Maybe add the bird after the vegetables have started cooking to give for softer veggies if that is how you like them.
4. Bacon. Wrap the bird like it was a 22lb dove, and bake.

Desert quail, chukar, dove, dry land pheasant: I do not just breast out my game birds. I skin them, and then remove the breast, but I take the little hearts and gizzards, and the leg quarters, and save them separately. I will Sautee these parts with onion and maybe a vinegar wine sauce, over wild rice; or a marinara and noodles. Makes a VERY different flavor, and really enjoyable meal. As soon as I can get from the field back to the truck, I will strip the birds and get them in a plastic bag and into the ice chest, with lots of ice/ dunked in ice water. I have hunted many, many times for dove in 110+ temps. Even chukar hunts have gone well into the 90's so cooling the meat to save the meal is really important. If the birds smell really gamey, I will lightly salt some cold water, so I can taste a little salt, and then soak them in that for an hour. Much better.
We hunt the Salton Sea for ducks. (Once every 5 years, just to say I did it....) Since you are happy to get teal, and ecstatic to bag a mallard or pintail...... you wind up usually shooting spoonies, ruddy ducks, or shovelers. They all taste like their names.... I will breast these birds out there in the field, and this is the one exception where I discard the chassis and leave it for coyote food. Soak the breast in milk, or salted water for an hour. Now, find a recipe for liver, and substitute the very red meat from the duck, and if you can cook up a good liver meal???? You will enjoy them. (These ducks taste like this because they are snail/ worm and root foragers in the swamp. The legs are stringy, and salty tasting, and YES, I tried many times before conceding defeat and handing them over to the desert dogs.)

On to hooves and horns!!!

That sweet thunder of the 30-06 gongs your ears. The rifle jumps, and the picture is jarred. You regain your position, and look desperately for your quarry- and there it is, flopping and kicking, and staying down. SUCCESS!
It's 8am, and you have already been out here since 5 o'clock. You have been up since 3, and you hiked in 2 and a half miles, and up a beast of a canyon. The weatherman said it would top 90 today..... "Maybe I should have settled for taking a picture instead, eh?!!"
What to do: Break the animal up and pack it out. (Or, in Texas, drive the buggy up to the feeder, and load the hog before it gets too dang hot.....) Separate the animal from its' intestines as fast as you can. If the thing will not fit in an ice chest whole, or you have some situation where you need to cover ground with it, you might need to keep it in the hide and whole. If so, wash the cavity out as best you can. And if it's too much for the ice chest, stuff the cavity with ice as much as you can, as fast as you can.
Now, it's dead as freedom in Connecticut. And it's pretty big, and you want to make the most of it. It's a little on the gamey side. (We will talk about REALLY gamey a bit later. Let's stick to good eaters first.)
Break the animal down beyond quartering. Separate ribs from the chassis, clear the neck off, the straps and loins, disconnect the shoulders and rear quarters. Maybe break them down a bit further, separate the upper and lower leg sections. The more surface area, the better for this part.
Put the entire broken down animal into the biggest ice chest you got.... or 2 of them. Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of salt over the animal, and then fill the entire ice chest to the top plugged with ice. Add in a little water for the first day.
Leave the ice chest outside, in a shaded area. At the end of day 1, drain the water onto the grass. Add more ice, plug the chest again, and close it up. Repeat this for a MINIMUM of 3 days. For a more heavy scented or larger animal, 4-5 days is just fine. IT WILL NOT GO BAD, ROT, OR MAKE YOU SICK. It's pretty much 3/4 frozen at this point. I add salt every other day, and I drain the water in the evening, each day. You should come home to a slushy with meat in the ice chest each day.

In anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line, or west of the rockies, a lot of hunting is done in weather too hot for hanging meat proper. Hanging the meat allows for some controlled decomposition of hard meats and tendons, aged meat is far superior. The leeching of the heavy flavors in ice water with some salt makes a HUGE difference in getting unwanted heavy flavor from the meat. I can't stress it enough.

Now that the beast has been aged, break all the parts down further, or bag 'em and tag 'em.
Wild boar, even loins tend to harden when done on the BBQ direct. The cuts are softer when treated with a wine/ vinegar to break down sinew and meat fibre, or various meat tenderizers and prodigious amounts of ventilating with a fork allows for sauces and seasonings to penetrate the deeper parts of the cuts. When it comes to wild game, they tend to dry out much quicker than farm raised animals, simply because nature does not allow for a hog, or deer to have fat marbled into the meat as a cow or farm raised hog can have. They carry their fat on the OUTSIDE of their muscle, purely as insulation, and as a storage of nutrients. If the fat does not smell bad, then I like to keep it, and cook it in with the meats in small portions. To tell if the fat is going to be a bit rancid and not worth keeping, just cut a chunk and fry it, and see how it smells and taste it. If it tastes a bit like ammonia, or smells like urine..... just toss it.

Slow cooking hogs makes for great meals. I will oven cook a set of ribs for 20 or so minutes at 400, then finish them on the grill for another 5-10 minutes to get a smoky taste into them and the crisped edges- but not dried out.
Wild boar, venison roasts are great; cover in foil or crock pot cook them.
Hocks are a great add-in for bean sups, stews, etc. Necks make great roasts, and good carnitas/ pulled pork.
Sliced thin, and cooked quickly, tenderloins and straps are good. Left whole, it is hard to keep them tender if they are large. If the hog is BIG, I often make pork chops and forgo loins and straps. Cut that way, the meat tends to be more manageable.

I have a great sausage maker close by, and I will take all my trimmings and fats and he kicks out some fantastic stuff for me; I am lucky. If the fat smells rancid, I will not send it out, I will have the butcher add in some other animal fats; beef, pork, or chicken. Had the pleasure once of getting 20lb of sausage made with lamb fat. OH. MY. GAWD. Literally the best sausage I have ever gotten in my life. I prefer really lean sausage, 5% fat is about all I want.

2 types of pigs that will turn your nose:
1. Big, BIG boars, can be very heavy scented and flavored. I kill them, usually for the sake of the rancher. He does not really want a 400lb rototiller working over his crops. I'll try to take the straps and hams, and the shoulders. Sometimes they work out after a good 5 day soak, sometimes they are still pretty bad. I will cut a small piece, and give it a shot. If the flavor is good, and not rancid, I send him off for sausage. The big boys tend to turn to leather, and are street brawlers, so the meat is as tough as the hog looks. Smells GREAT.... but the dog can't chew thru it.
2. It's pretty rare..... but a sow, fresh in heat has some serious hormones running thru her body. And her..... uh.... perfume- it can knock a man over. I will give her proper effort and try to brine her with a lot more salt in the mix, like 1 cup on the first day, and a half a cup every other day for 5 days. If the flavor and smell come decent, then I can use it for some meals, and for some sausage. We had one sow, all of 60lb, and she had enough scent on her that we smelled her from 200 yards walking up on her after the shot. We tried for a minute, and then decided that the coyotes and foxes need to eat, too.

Well after all that I just have one word for ya. KETCHUP!

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Real men love cats!

i wasted many good venison steaks, by overcooking. I finally learned medium-rare works best.. I also learned that it keeps cooking for a bit once you take it off the heat.

For good ribs and tougher cuts, you gotta take your time. However, never have found ANYTHING that will tenderize elk ribs. Saw a bear the next day on a carcass of one I shot and even he left the ribs. However, coyotes will chew on them. Shot and guided on many wild boar. Wife and I lived on an elk, a mule deer and a wild hog (plus some antelope meat I traded for), as well as some tuna and rockfish for 2 years of college and 2 years of grad school (and a few pheasant, quail, and dove).

Boar are usually too lean for bacon. Even the sows in Cali are. If a big one, we did smoke the hams but they were a little dry (good but dry). I made a lot of sausage (Italian, chorizo, salami, breakfast & summer). The trick for sausage is DO NOT ADD FAY OR USE FAT FROM THE ANIMAL. Fat will turn rancid, even in the freezer. I add fat later in the form of commercial sausage and or cheap ground beef. Game also tends to lend itself to spicier sausages rather than milder northern European styles.

Cook ribs and tougher cuts slowly. I roast ribs (domestic or boar) for about 3-5 hours at 250 deg over a bath of 50% water and 50% acid (usually red wine vinegar, cider vinegar, etc). Don't immerse. Cook on a roasting rack in a roasting pan, well tented with foil. Use a dry rub. THEN, caramelize on coals or under a broiler, slathered with sauce, if you wish.

Venison roasts: Cook in a crockpot on low-med, with a can of beefr broth and sprinkled with Lipton onion soup. Or do in a roasting pan in the oven.

Machaca or ropa vieja: Cook roast in crockpot overnight with salsa. Preferably home-made (I grow my own tomatoes, garlic, onions, peppers, etc.) Cool and shred. Use in tacos, enchiladas, etc.

Carnitas: Same as above with pork (boar) roasts. (Bear?)

Chile verde: Same but use green sauce (tomatillos, onions, garlic, green peppers)

Steaks: Marinate in an oil-acid blend, then cook. Preferably cider or red wine vinegar and olive oil but peanut oil and soy or teriyaki works too. For camping, use Italian dressing. Don't marinate too long. Overnight is enough for really strong. tough meat.
Man, I'm on a diet and this is killing me.

Be inventive: A friend of mine traded me a whole pronghorn for a couple of elk roasts. He shot it on the Red Desert of Wyoming and complained about the strong sage taste. Made great breakfast sausage and sausage stuffing for a wild turkey at Thanksgiving.

Thank you very much!

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SWCA 1646