Small game back on the table, where it belonged!

[Changeling]

Sense the grocery stores have taken away realistically priced "Meat", it is my feeling that small game will once again be enjoyed by individuals and there families.
I was raised on Rabbit/ squirrel/deer and a hell of a lot of other animals, however some seem to think these are not "Politically correct today"!
That is very understandable till one sees a steak at 5 to $7.00 bucks a pound and the "NEW" price of Bacon in the high 3's to 5 figures. Not like that in your area, give it a few days!!!

What I'm getting at is as long as consumers pay these prices they will continue to "RISE" till you start to squeal like a cornered Rabbit!!!

What can you do, STOP buying things just because you think you need them when you know dam well it's gouging!

[jhalcott]

Many of us live in populated areas. This makes hunting ANY game difficult at best and probably illegal also! I hunt a lot of farms in Md. and see them turned into housing developments. The people let their pets run amok, killing any small game and lots of birds that the pets DO NOT eat.ANY cats I see in the fields are fair game according to most of the farm owners, and the carcass's fit nicely in ground hog holes!

[Johnch]

My co workers many times laugh when I bring in my lunch box
As I will have Any of the normal or even some of the slightly odd small game critters for lunch

Last 2 days I heated up Goose breast chille

They total freak out when I shot a bunch of pigons after work one day with the pellet gun
Breasted them out and took the breast's home to cook

Then they see me buy a new gun or fishing rod and ask where I got the $$
While they are eating a lunch that cost them $10

John

[crabo]

I shot a buffalo this summer and we are eating it now. Steaks, roasts and burgers came out to $3.50 a pound. My wife said we need to also start shooting some pigs for the pork. We have been buying pasture fed beef and pork, and range chickens, along with fresh goat milk, but the price is getting out of hand.

A friend of mine is going to start trapping hogs. I am thinking that is too good of a source of pork to let it go to waste. What better way to learn to roast a pig in a pit, when it doesn't cost you anything.

I'm going hunting tomorrow for doves, coyotes, and if we get lucky, some pigs. I hope to bring back something to eat.

[Suo Gan]

I have an old barn on the back forty. I started raising pigeons in there about ten years ago. Most towns do not have ordinances against this sort of thing, but the coop becomes a stinking mess. I like to eat squabs and if you have a good meat type and live close to a city they can be sold there. Chinamen like to eat them. I trade all my fish heads, wild ducks, guinea hens and squabs to them for whatever I want on the menu, they think I am great. Chinamen also like silky chickens, duckling, and young rabbit. Pork fly lice!

[10 ga]

Being retired and haveing a commercial fishing license, and being a trappe and hunter we get plenty of meat. Besides selling fish, crabs, clams, welks and oysters I can sell a lot of the meat I get off the trapline. Here there is an excellent demand for muskrat meat and a moderate market for coon and opossum. There is a good market for beaver meat to the guys with hounds. Of course at times these items find their way onto my table too. Some of the guys in the hunt club do an old fashioned pig killin in February and that is an excellen source of goodies. My son in law and I split a hog at hog killlin. usually works out to about $1.50 lb finished. Get to cure my own bacon and hams and shoulders, and pickle the knuckles and feet and I get about all of them cause most guys don't like them. Of course plenty of sausage and chops to go around. Last year12 of us killed and butchered 9 hogs in one day. Of course I saved the loins out of the 9 deer I killed and gave most of the rest away except for some I corned. Plenty of the retired people around here have big gardens and I trade meat/fish or critter trappin service for veggies. The newbies always decline my critter trappin service until they try to raise a garden or landscape the yard, then they call for help. Guess Obamy will be after me for not spendin $ but I'm helpin Bobs economy. Best to all, 10

[Changeling]

I see we have some guys here who have there stuff together! I believe it will start expounding faster and faster as available land permits.

Cats: I have anew neighbor that for some reason thinks its OK to let her house cats out at night to roam at will. A few days ago I steeped out of the house to go to the grocery store and right into a pile of Cat ****, I blew my cork and called the woman and told her about her cats, she informed me that I had no proof and her cats had a right to roam as they wished! I informed her that I then had a right to blow them away. I then took the pile of stuff down to here house walked up onto her carport and dumped it out! Haven't heard a word from them, but the cats have been pooping on my barn stoop and my side door stoop again! Time for the varmint call!

Yes, you dam right I'm pissed off!

[dale2242]

Grouse, Quail and Gray Squirrel will be seen on regular basis at our table. I enjoy the hunt and love the meat. I really don`t want to think about the cost per pound. Good clean fun and good eats. Who cares about the cost....dale

[Von Gruff]

I have a small section behind the house where I can run 3 or 4 sheep from spring through to autum and I kill them as the grass runs out and that has been the total of the meat I have paid for over the last few years. Generally the cost per sheep has been what you would pay for one hind quarter in the butcher. I keep us in meat with goat, rabbit, hare, and venison for the rest. Havent been able to hunt for the last six months as the freezer was to full to take any more but now has enough room for me to go out again.

Von Gruff.

[home in oz]

I watched a program on the discovery channel, that the "average" housecat, whose owners let them out for the night, kill 8-9 small animals, mostly birds a week.

[home in oz]

I shot a fat doe on Thursday evening with my .54.

Skinned it, hung it in the garage and processed it into the freezer on Friday.

The last one I took to a meat locker cost me $85 to get processed!

NOW THAT is GOUGING even if it is a large deer!

Resolved right there to go back to processing my own.

[Old Goat Keeper]

I'm mity glad to hear many of you guys are still livin the old way like I am. Hunting here in southern PA ain't what iis was years ago and time to leave. But I still try to live the old way.

Changeling the Chinee think cat a fine meal. You like Chinee food??? lol

BTW, we are the ones who will survive when the "sheet" hits the fan! And NO it hasn't gotten here yet!

Tom

[Lloyd Smale]

Just about all of our meat is meat ive shot. I put a number of whitetail in the freezer every year and usually shoot a bufflalo at my buddys game farm once a year too. It isnt really a hunt but i can shoot a 1000lb cow for a little over a grand and end up with meat for about 2 bucks a lb. I dont do much small game hunting anymore. If a grouse or rabit or turkey presents itself when im at camp or hunting deer i may take it but for me to actually go out looking to kill them the cost of gas and the time involved makes it more expensive that buying meat in the store. I dont do much fishing anymore but have buddys that are comercial fisherman and do trade venison and ammo for fish.

[10 ga]

Changeling, Cats are a sucker for a cubby set! Use a feather on a thread in front and a bird wing or piece of fur and a fried chicken leg bone inside.

[EMC45]

I like to fill the freezer when I can. MGD45 called a couple months ago and asked if I wanted 2 hogs......I said "sure". Well when I showed up it was more like 3 hogs and I promptly shot one as well with his 300WinMag. So I had 4 hogs that would otherwise turn into buzzard food (they are a nuisance animal around here). I have made pork BBq and BWick Stew out of it. It all eats just fine! I also kill as many squirrel in my back yard as I can with my pellet gun. I have killed a bunch! My MIL called and said she was tired of all the squirrels in her attic and getting under her tin roof. She lives on the outskirts of city limits. So I loaded up the trusty .22LR and shot 21 squirrels in 3 days out there. They eat just fine.....

[MT Gianni]

I used to eat a lot more game but bought a half share in a roping steer with a neighbor. He had gotten a little bigger than the team ropers like and the guy down the road with the arena was selling a few. First neighbor's kids fed it, we cut it hung it and wrapped it [he is a former meatcutter with good tools]. My cost was around $1.60 a lb. Flavor is good but not enough marbeling to make prime.
Bought a buddy pig a couple of years ago for a companion to the ones going to the fair [3 pigs fed two get sold]. Cost on that was around $2.10 a lb when the going price of half a pig $1.50 cut and wrapped at the butcher shop. I haven't eaten store bought for a long time.

[Von Gruff]

If a grouse or rabit or turkey presents itself when im at camp or hunting deer i may take it but for me to actually go out looking to kill them the cost of gas and the time involved makes it more expensive that buying meat in the store..

I would agree with that if any distance was involved or the expected "catch" might be doubtfull but where I am, I expect to get enough to be cost effective.
Where I go for rabbit is usually about 100 mile and when I get 4 or 5 rabbits I consider that covers the fuel cost and it is not unusual to get 20-30 in a couple of hours. If I leave home arround 5.30 am, I can have the rabbits I want by 10.30 or so and by driving another 10 miles I am where the goats are so with a couple of them as well and the chance of a hare or two on the track in or out, my meat gathering can be quite inexpensive. It is the deer that are a bit more elusive and that is pure hunting as the sucess rate is much lower due to the lower numbers of animals and the hunting (and poaching) pressure.

Spring is just underway here and the young rabbit are about in large numbers again so nearly time for another run.

Von Gruff.

[Arisaka99]

Gruff, where are you at? Colorado? ;P Lloyd, I wanna come hunt with you!!!

[Changeling]

Well some of you seem to have it pretty well, I used to but now I have emphysema, it is a pure "BITCH"! I can't go up hills without stopping every 60 feet or so to recover. To make it even worse i lost my hunting area and shooting range. The farmer where I had all these privileges was a neighbor, sold his land, the land was right in back of my house, man I had a really good set up!
However the farmer sold his land to a developer and pressure on the developer from the "Yuppies" has forced him to terminate hunting!! At the same time the yuppies are raising hell with the county because they keep hitting the deer and want the county to do something! Dam, talk about some stupid people!

Anyone have some flat land full of gray squirrels, my favorite meat, that and Blue Gills, LOL!

[cattleskinner]

Here is today's catch, didn't want to get the limit of 6 as I had other stuff to do, but not bad for just over an hour in the woods.

[Von Gruff]

Gruff, where are you at? Colorado?

South Otago, New Zealand. Updated my details, should have done it long ago.

Von Gruff.

[Arisaka99]

Oh ok, that would explain it.

[Changeling]

Here is today's catch, didn't want to get the limit of 6 as I had other stuff to do, but not bad for just over an hour in the woods.

Cattle skinner you really know how to hurt a man, LOL! We don't have any fox squirrels around where I hunt and I have only shot a few in my life. Are there actually that many out there in your territory? Where exactly are you if you don't mind telling? Did you use a squirrel dog?

Man you're living the good life in my book!


Now don't tell me you have a pond full of giant Blue Gills, or I'll be looking into moving, LOL!

[cattleskinner]

I'm in north central ohio, near a small village called Sycamore. I don't use a squirrel dog, I did have one for awhile, but never seemed to have enough time to run it between the kids and work so it got sold to someone who did. I would say there is 90% or more fox squirrels to grays around here population wise. Those fox squirrels sure love to eat field corn, and they do real well living in small woodlots surrounded by fields like we have in my area. I only seem to see the grays in city parks, running around in town or the farther south in the state you get. I got these by still hunting with a .22 which is my preferred method. Dad likes to find himself a big tree and sit...I think it is more that he enjoys the quiet of the woods, and eating squirrels if he happens to get some is a welcome by-product.

And to rub it in, yes there are some farm ponds with big bluegills :mrgreen:

[reloader28]

The small little mountain squirrels we got around here are so small that a .22 tears them up. About the size of a 3 week old kitten. Never heard of anyone around here eating them. The ones that people feed in town are pretty good sized. We do eat a rabbit once in a while.

[Arisaka99]

We have so many in our apt complex, I want to shoot some of them but I dont know if they are good to eat or not. I have a blowgun and bb and pellet guns and a slingshot that i could use. We have carp around here and I shoot at the carp with my slingshot, I dont always hit them, but when you do, they swirl around like a tornado and take off.

[cattleskinner]

You can always use a slingshot....used a glass marble from the dollar store on this one a few years ago. Three stories up really helped to add a little zing to it.

[Changeling]

My X father in Law loved to shoot at squirrels with a blow gun because he lived in a city and they frown on shooting squirrels with a gun, drive by's at people seem to be OK but not squirrels.

I went down one day to visit and we were sitting in his back yard watching the squirrels when one came up with a dart sticking out of his head, thought I would die laughing.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

I got some doves, first one of the season:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting/1stDove.jpg

Jack Rabbits:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting002.jpg

Cottontail:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting/Tularemia3-26-10001.jpg

Both together
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting014.jpg

Skillet Rabbit!
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting015.jpg

Even Rattlesnake!
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting/ColdSnake.jpg

Ready to eat!
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/ShawnTVT/Guns/Hunting/FriedRattleSnake.jpg