beaver hunt

[daniel collums]

i went down to my pond sunday to feed my bream and a beaver had moved into it. he had cut down one of my trees i panted a few years back and chewed on a few others. right before it got dark he came out and made a big circle then came just a bit to close and the .54 round ball turned him into bream food.

 

[BrownBear]

Excellent!

I'm here to tell you that muskrats can reach heights of 10' and maybe little more when a big old ball hits the water right under their chins! If there's such a thing as squirrel barking, this must be rat rocketry! :rotf:

 

[Brokennock]

Bream food?! You left it for the fish? Them's good eating. I prefer to turn all but the tail into meatballs marinara, then broil the tail on hardwood coals.

 

[house]

I totally agree. Beaver meat is some of the best wild meat a man can get!

 

[daniel collums]

i eat them and like them. this one was to far out in deep water to get and i didnt have my fishing pole to snag him. i was about 15 the first time i ate beaver, after reading about lewis@clark and how much protein the men needed and beaver was the best. they did say the tail was a delicacy. what are some of the ways ya'll cook them. my wife likes to put them in a pot and boil a little then roast them in a big pan with tators and such. also grilled with bbq sauce. it takes about 3 to feed us, i mostly just keep the back part the front end dont have much meat.

 

[Brokennock]

Except for the tail, which I prefer roasted right on some hardwood coals, I generally grind the meat into burger. I'll mame burger patties for the grill or meatballs marinara out of it. Sometimes I'll mix it more like a meatloaf but rather than one big loaf I device it into a muffin pan and make several mini meat loaves, or meat muffins as the case may be.

 

[Vaino]

In the short term beavers and their dams can be a nuisance and here in Wisconsin, beaver dams have caused flooding of roads and then the DNR dynamites the dams. Private land is flooded much to the owners' chagrin and then the owners have to take measures to get rid of the beaver.

When I was stream trout fishing in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin for many years, fresh {no more than 2 or 3 yrs old} beaver ponds were prime waters for catching brook trout. After 2 or possibly 3 years, the flooded trees and bushes died and no longer attracted insects which the trout fed on, so the ponds no longer held trout. Also...for some reason, beaver just like to "gnaw" down larger trees and reach out quite a distance to do this.

After awhile for various reasons, the beaver dams opened up, the water level dropped and the stream once again became evident.

What was left along the stream was grazing land for deer and elk....which is beneficial to not only the animals but also for man. This is the long term benefit of beaver.

Because of the impatience of our times, increased human populations and a limited amount of "wild country", beaver have become a modern day nuisance.....and, we just don't tolerate "pests"....Fred

 

[Patocazador]

I killed a ~50 lb. beaver, skinned it (very time consuming), and cooked the small backstraps like deer. It tasted like .. deer.
The thing that surprised me most was how the guts took up about 65-70% of the carcass .. very little actual meat.

 

[Vaino]

If you ate "trees" { actually the bark} you'd have a big gut too..... :grin: Eating beaver tail...is that a joke because having seen a few tails, I didn't think there was any edible meat?...HA, ha, ha...it was a joke, correct?.....Fred

 

[Patocazador]

If you ate "trees" { actually the bark} you'd have a big gut too..... :grin: ....Fred

So, that explains my big gut ... interesting, very interesting. :hmm:

 

[daniel collums]

all my moms folks are from wisconsin and i fell in love with that place. my uncle tom took us fishing in the beaver swamps and we caught lots of brook trout, i saw him catch one that looked to be a 2 or 3 pounder. most of the ones i caught were about ten inches. my other uncle, uncle Archie took us ice fishing one winter on mole lake then one summer we went catching bait for his bait shop. i had lots of chances to stay there but the south was my home. still sometimes i regret not staying there. uncle tom is still alive and still has his bait shop and one of his sons billy has a bow pro-shop, their last name is rusch. right now its snowing so hard here i cant see the end of my driveway, it dont do this very much in mississippi, looks like we have about 3 inches and its still coming down . i reckon for you folks up there this an't even a dusting.

 

[Vaino]

I always felt very excited fishing for brook trout in beaver ponds because many of the trout were on the large size....a 2-3 lb brookie is a wall hanger. I spent many summers w/ my paternal grandparents in northern Minnesota and caught a lot of brookies and they were a welcome change from the "crocked meat"...no electric, so salting in a crock was the only way to preserve meat....usually a hog and a larger veal. Of course, when a laying hen didn't "perform", she ended as a casserole and this was such good tasting chicken and sorry to say, can't be bought today.

I guess where you're raised is where you feel comfortable and prefer to stay. Have been to MS and from what I saw. I could live there.

We've had a "nice" winter w/ little snow and mostly moderate temps. The heavier snow is south of us and the snow storms are in the East, so we've "dodged the bullet". The "deep south" has had some very cold temps, so it seems to me that something is changing asre the weather.

Glad that you enjoyed Wisconsin...it's where I feel comfortable.....Fred

 

[No Deer]

From what I have seen, beaver tail is mostly fat. I have seen cross section pics of beaver tail and it looks like bacon. It was a desired meal for the voyageurs in days of old because they needed the calories. Although I have not yet tried beaver tail, it is on my bucket list. I have had roasted beaver, and bbq, both were very good.

From what I have read the tail is best when cooked right on the hot coals of a cooking fire. Cook it until the skin splits and it is done.

 

[Vaino]

Is the skin edible after cooking? I'm known as a person who "eats weird stuff" and will try anything one time and decide...but, the "outer husk" of a beaver tail might be an exception.....I still think it's a joke.....Fred

 

[No Deer]

http://www.mman.us/mythbeavertail.htm http://cannundrum.blogspot.com/2013/02/beaver-tail.html

Here are a couple of links to eating beaver tail.

 

[Vaino]

Well. I'll be. Are they available in the freezer section of a super market? :grin: .....Fred

 

[pargent]

:idunno: Not what I though this would be about ,oh well

 

[Vaino]

Sorry for "highjacking" your post....evidently our attention spans are too short.

Global warming or whatever it's called is caused by many factors and one of the most detrimental is the collective amounts of methane gas released from beef cattle. So....to diminish the consumption of beef, other animals should be utilized, eg...beaver, nutria, capybara, muskrats, guinea pigs and other vegetarian rodents.

Had an uncle who was a big time beaver and muskrat trapper many yrs ago and the muskrat carcasses were frozen and shipped to gourmet New York restaurants and were listed on the menu as "swamp rabbit". Due to the low price of muskrat pelts, not many are presently being trapped, so genuine "swamp rabbit" is no longer listed on the menus.

Again....sorry for the topic deviance which happens all too often..... :shocked2:....Fred

 

[crockett]

Years ago I skinned out a tail and was going to use the leather for a knife sheath but never got around to it. I always thought you used the whole tail (both sides) but one guy used just a single side and folded it in half- so two sheaths from one tail. With the scales on the leather- probably make a really nice sheath.

 

[Patocazador]

Is the skin edible after cooking? I'm known as a person who "eats weird stuff" and will try anything one time and decide...but, the "outer husk" of a beaver tail might be an exception.....I still think it's a joke.....Fred

Have you tried 'jellied moose nose'?

When I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, there were 2 nurses from Newfoundland (Newfies). They talked about how they missed eating jellied moose nose. I think they were telling the truth. :idunno: