I recently finished a MAG-40 class in New Hampshire (http://massadayoobgroup.com).  Riding around, I’ve seen more turkeys in the Granite State than I remember from ever before.  I’m told the deer population is flourishing too.

Hunting season will be upon us soon.  This is the time to clean and sight in the guns.  The time to scope out the hunting fields and forests.  Time to put the ear to the ground with local folks and particularly game wardens to gather intelligence on where the game is most likely to be found.

It will be Thanksgiving soon.  A turkey you brought to the table from the field will have a flavor that nothing you can buy from the market for Thanksgiving can match.

17 COMMENTS

  2. When I was growing up, my grandfather, Pa, was an avid turkey hunter and always had one for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Then one year my grandmother told me that Pa hadn’t been able to get a turkey and we would have to have “a store bought turkey” for Thanksgiving. I had no idea what that was. Everyone had a good laugh at my youthful ignorance, and after eating the thing, Pa announced he would NEVER let that happen again.

    • It’s not wild turkey, but if you buy a turkey from a local farm that knows how to raise birds, the flavor will be exceptionally good. Avoid the grocery store birds at all costs.

  3. Don’t forget to get your hunting license, and make sure you are Hunter Education certified. Down here in Texas you should have also arranged your hunting lease with the landowner. (95 percent of the state is privately-owned.)

    • Yeah, boy! One thing you learn watching Lone Star Law is that you can get into a felony pretty fast hunting while trespassing.

  4. The residential suburbs of Sacramento are lousy with turkeys. I saw a couple of hens with a dozen babies moseying across the street a couple of days ago. The golf courses are also well provided with them PLUS deer and coyotes. Until 15 or 20 years ago I don’t think I had seen this kind of thing in my whole long life.

    • In Boston of all places, we are having an infestation of turkeys, they walk around South Boston almost taking over parts of some neighborhoods, it’s crazy.

  5. Also time to double-check your tree stands & safety harness. Once each of the last 2 years someone has fallen & died in my area. Safe hunting.

  6. Mas speaks the truth. My wife and I agree that the best Thanksgiving turkey we ever had was one I had shot in Palmetto Bluff, SC (our first Thanksgiving together, in 1983) back when it was a private reserve of the Union Paper Company.

    I too, was in NH last week, but at the Sig Academy. I recommended to several of my new friends there that they seek out a MAG 40 course for the best review of the legal niceties of self defense with lethal force.

  7. When I read about prehistoric hominids hunting mammoths, mastodons, wild horses, etc. — one thing no one has ever explained to me is this. Using only primitive fires to roast their kills, how did they prevent the meat from tasting too gamey?

    • @ Frank Silbermann – After a successful hunt, especially for large animals like bison or mammoths, the tribe would have more meat available then it could cook and eat on-the-spot. Therefore, techniques to preserve meat were very important.

      These ranged from smoking the meat, drying the meat into jerky, or (as native Americans did) processing the meat into pemmican. See this link which discusses pemmican:

      https://www.outdoorrevival.com/instant-articles/pemmican-native-american-survival-food.html?firefox=1

      So, to answer your question directly, a lot of the meat was preserved and, ultimately, eaten as a preserved food. Clearly, pemmican would likely not taste gamey due to the way it was processed and due to the other ingredients (nuts, fruits, etc.) added to it.

      As for the meat that was cooked fresh and eaten on-the-spot, I don’t think that early hominids would mind a little gamey taste. Early tribes often lived on the edge of starvation and would eagerly gobble down the meat whenever available. It takes a modern, pampered human to worry about a little gamey taste!

      These early hominids were not picky or pampered like modern humans.

      Even modern humans don’t worry about it under the right circumstances. Watch a few episodes of the reality TV series “Naked and Afraid”. You will see hungry humans eat bugs, fried scorpions, grilled snake, and a whole bunch of other such delicacies.

      A hungry belly trumps a finicky palate!

      • Wise old saying in Africa – “Meat is meat, it’s all good to eat.”

        Probably the last words a 1800’s white missionary heard. 🙁

      • Famous last words heard by many neophyte Nimrods in Africa, uttered by their guides and gun-bearers: “Tembo, Bwana!”

      • Strategic Steve:

        I have an old blue T-shirt with a The Far Side cartoon which showed an elephant lifting up one of his legs to check his feet and finding a squished guy with a surprised expression under it.

        I had read a long time ago of a female teacher who was vacationing in Africa and her ultimate wish was to play with an elephant. What was left of her mangled body was stomped flat into the ground and providing nutrition to a bunch of ants when found. These are the highly educated people who are teaching our kids.

      • Roger:

        That woman was probably dumb before she watched Dumbo. Teach should have read books by Elmer Keith, John Hunter, Jim Corbett, John Taylor, and Peter Hathaway Capstick like I did as a teenager.

Comments are closed.