Duck Camp Dinners

[sweetandsour]

. . . We must have lit 5 or 6 hollow trees on fire that morning, with moss and leaves, smoking those poor squirrels out of their hiding spots. Talk about intruding into their environment.

I won't speak to how another man hunts, considering regional sensibilities and ones desire to put food on the table, but yeah, I wouldn't do that today. One of the first times I hunted by myself (I had my own car and license at 14 so I struck out pretty young) I shot a squirrel in the nest, secure in the knowledge there should be no babies there in the fall. Problem is the squirrel didn't drop. I spent 20 or 30 minutes throwing rocks and makeshift spears trying to dismantle the nest before I gave up and went home. I never did that again. I have, of course, had dead squirrels fall and get hung up in the forks of trees, but I've not since shot one I knew I had little chance of recovering.

[EDIT] I'm not suggesting that S&S's kin were as low down as I was, shooting a nest.

No one that I've ever known indiscriminately goes around setting fires or shooting at nests. If a squirrel being chased holes up in a hollow tree, one can smoke him/her out, it's as simple as that.

[Hugo Drax]

Hunting traditions are different everywhere you go. We don't smoke squirrels out around here because you'd light the whole forest on fire. Swamp land, why not? Aristocrats such as ourselves don't ground sluice birds unless nobody is looking and you've had a bad day,, but in the Montana of my youth, shooting timber chickens out of a pickup truck was considered fair dinkum. Meat for the pot.

Here people get drunk in their tree stands and blast anything that moves. It's a local tradition. I might not like it one little bit, buy who am I besides a geezer that's sick of picking up beer cans?


Little bunny frou-frou was shot out of season for nibbling in the garden the other day. Plenty of people would have a problem with that. She made a great cacciatore, tender and mild.

Point is, we're all cavemen.

[Bloodhound]

Good Afternoon...I have been enjoying this thread little by little. I was without computer over the long weekend, so just got back to CPS a little yesterday and today.

I was raised by a guy who said that growing up they had to hunt for meat for the table and that now he could afford meat, so he refused to hunt or let me hunt. When I was out of his control, I got into small game hunting, big game hunting and I enjoy it.

I don't put any stickers on my Tacoma or the 4Runners that I had before, I have seen them be the reason one vehicle gets broken into rather than another vehicle.

Pine Squirrels = Yuk When my son was a teen, we went camping and took no food, gonna eat what we killed, I was hoping for rabbits, but we only found pine squirrels...skinned em and cleaned em and roasted them over the fire...the meat, what little meat there was, was too tough to chew...we cut it into small bites and still very very tough and tasted like pine sap...decided pine squirrels wouldn't be targeted again at least not for dinner. I have seen a few albert's squirrels, but based on the previous experience, have not shot any.

Colorado has lots of rabbits, and such, but they are not near as big as they are in other parts of the country, so you need a few to make a meal. I take maybe 8 rabbits a year, a few ducks and a goose or two if I am lucky. My favorite game is blue grouse..er dusky grouse....can't get used to the name change. I haven't big game (deer & elk) for the last three years...I have been busy with other projects during the application times and the hunting time, so that leaves me as a grouse hunter.

I turkey hunted some when we lived on the Western Slope, but I never got one. I need to take that up again.

I always wanted to hunt rabbits over dogs. I don't see my wife signing off on a $10,000 moose hunt, but there are rabbit guides with dogs in Iowa and Missouri and other places, and the prices are a lot less than $10,000

[Bloodhound]

I just saw this...I would hunt those squirrels...big critters!

[Hugo Drax]

Bloodhound! I've been waiting for you!

No clue what a pine squirrel is, but roast squirrel in general is a bad idea. I'm fond of the boogers and so I don't shoot them much at all, but I'll tell you what...squirrel and dumplings is a meal fit fir a king. Favorite food of at least one President, the trick is to cook em low and slow in liquid. I use the crock pot when my wife isn't looking and tell her it's chicken. Trash removed immediately and discarded before she knows.

Rabbits are similar, I think. Not a lot of fat on them. I like to make a rough italian hunter's dinner out of them. Saute them quickly to put a crust on, fry whatever vegetables you have on hand and a couple of anchovies, and then cook them low and slow for 45 minutes or so in a tomato sauce with a few cloves of garlic and a bunch of fresh rosemary. Alternatively, a sauce of red wine, stock, and mushroom liquid will make a nice Piemontese cacciatore. One pot cooking.

Great. Now I'm murderous and hungry!

[Bloodhound]

Pine Squirrel They are tiny and skinny

[FredS]

When she was perhaps 6-7 years old daughter #2 told her teacher that I had some squirrels. The teacher asked "Oh, what kind? Does he keep them in a cage or do they run around the house?" Daughter said "They're pink. He keeps them in the freezer."

Same kid told the teacher and her class that I drove a trash truck. One day I showed up for a school play or something wearing a necktie because I'd slipped away from work on a day when customers were visiting the office. Teacher takes Mrs FredS aside and asks "Uhm, does your husband drive a trash truck?"

[Del]

When she was perhaps 6-7 years old daughter #2 told her teacher that I had some squirrels. The teacher asked "Oh, what kind? Does he keep them in a cage or do they run around the house?" Daughter said "They're pink. He keeps them in the freezer."

Same kid told the teacher and her class that I drove a trash truck. One day I showed up for a school play or something wearing a necktie because I'd slipped away from work on a day when customers were visiting the office. Teacher takes Mrs FredS aside and asks "Uhm, does your husband drive a trash truck?"

Working the garbage truck sounded a lot more exciting than whatever you actually did.

[FredS]

When she was perhaps 6-7 years old daughter #2 told her teacher that I had some squirrels. The teacher asked "Oh, what kind? Does he keep them in a cage or do they run around the house?" Daughter said "They're pink. He keeps them in the freezer."

Same kid told the teacher and her class that I drove a trash truck. One day I showed up for a school play or something wearing a necktie because I'd slipped away from work on a day when customers were visiting the office. Teacher takes Mrs FredS aside and asks "Uhm, does your husband drive a trash truck?"

Working the garbage truck sounded a lot more exciting than whatever you actually did.

Garbage truck or an office job managing projects for a company that builds injection molds? Trashman sounds better, hands down.

[Hugo Drax]

When she was perhaps 6-7 years old daughter #2 told her teacher that I had some squirrels. The teacher asked "Oh, what kind? Does he keep them in a cage or do they run around the house?" Daughter said "They're pink. He keeps them in the freezer."

Same kid told the teacher and her class that I drove a trash truck. One day I showed up for a school play or something wearing a necktie because I'd slipped away from work on a day when customers were visiting the office. Teacher takes Mrs FredS aside and asks "Uhm, does your husband drive a trash truck?"

When my middle daughter was in kindergarten, she was asked to draw a picture of what I did for a living. She drew a series of 1930's era cartoon black guys in cages and me saying "he didn't do it" to the judge. That phone call was mortifying.!