Groundhogs: Underated, Overlooked Small Game

Am Shooting Journal ^ | J Dickson

[w1n1]

Call them whistlepigs, woodchucks or whatnot, these eastern burrowers can provide good hunting – and meatier meals than rabbits, squirrels.
The groundhog is the most underrated small game animal in the country. We call them whistlepigs in northern Georgia, a reference to their calls and their food value. Groundhogs are good eating and there is a lot more meat on them than on squirrels and rabbits. Some folks boil an older one until tender and then put it in the oven.
I simply cover it with barbecue sauce and put them in the oven. Whatever way you prepare them, they taste good and a 10-pound whistlepig makes a good meal. These are fastidiously clean animals, as much as a burrowing animal can be. They live on a vegetarian diet and weigh between 41/2 to 13 pounds normally. They are everything you would want in a food source.

GROUNDHOGS ARE ACTIVE AT night, so early mornings and late afternoons are the best times to hunt them. They will sleep in their burrows during the heat of the day. These burrows are found at the edge of the wood line, against trees, barns and buildings, and in the sides of slopes where the entrance hole lets in less rain to flood into the burrow. They often are in the sides of drainage ditches.

Wherever they are, they come out to feed and to soak up the sun while surveying their domain. They often remain near the safety of their hole when sunbathing. Some people report that active burrows can be identified by the gnats at the entrance, but that is not true in my part of Georgia, where the holes are gnat-free. Scouting is the best way to find these holes, as undergrowth can easily hide them. The whistlepig's habit of standing beside his hole makes watching them productive. They leave the holes to feed on grasses, alfalfa (a favorite food), apples, and anything tasty a farmer is growing. Read the rest of groundhog hunting.

[IndispensableDestiny]

I had a bunch on my property, all dead now. Once in a while one tries to make its home here. I built a “special purpose rifle” in .223 just for the groundhogs. A .22 WMR killed them too, but they’d often crawl back in their holes.

The last one I killed was with a piece of firewood. The dog had it cornered.

[z3n]

I'd rather eat groundhog than squirrel. Never tried either. Plenty of groundhog in my area. Wild turkey too. 🍴 lol

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

There would be a world of difference between a planned practiced fast and an abrupt absence of food I would think.

[Alas Babylon!]

I’d say squirrel is a lot closer to a rat than a groundhog. The only difference ‘tween a rat and a squirrel is one has a naked tail and the other has a bushy one.

And a prairie dog is a type of ground squirrel.

[gundog]

I used to do that as a teenager, just for kicks. After a day, I didn't feel hungry. Certainly not famished to the point of wanting to eat anything. Granted, it was voluntary, and food was available. In a survival situation, rats wouldn't be my first choice until they were nearly my only choice.

[gundog]

One of the times that I fasted, the first non-water thing that I consumed was Apple juice. Auto -correct really wants that capitalized....Anyway...apple juice....acidic.... burned like hell on taste buds that hadn’t been in use. I imagine that citrus would be as bad.

[gundog]

I’ve eaten smoked carp, from clean water. Not at all bad.

[gundog]

I heard on Limbaugh that the white supremacists cleaning up Baltimore neighborhoods found 20 year old newspapers.

[DCBryan1]

Exploding groundhogs.com was a great website in its day. Fun sport!

[mountainlion]

I’ve eaten smoked carp, from clean water. Not at all bad. ,,,

The state of Oklahoma used to put on fish fries for tourists and when the fish were all cooked together most could not tell what fish they were eating.

[gundog]

Sure. But knowing that you won’t die if you miss a few meals, and knowing how it feels, is a good lesson.

[jjotto]

Yep. Smoked carp is great.

Carp is good canned with tomato juice and a little onion. It used to be called ‘Iowa salmon’.

Big demand for carp as ‘gefilte fish’, a Jewish thing.

[ladyjane]

They’re not underrated by the coyotes.

[gundog]

Hey, in a survival situation, I’ll take fish and birds over rats and squirrels any day.

[Notthemomma]

Both groundhog and squirrel are mostly lean dark meat, similar to beef, but not greasy like duck is. The squirrel obviously is smaller and has less meat. Each can be infested with fleas and ticks, so it’s good to be careful handling the carcass. Boiling the squirrel makes it easy to remove the muscle (meat) for further preparation, such as using it in a stew or stir fry. Groundhogs aren’t usually found in the deep south (South Georgia and Florida, e.g.)—something about the soil being too acidic for them, a game biologist once told me—but are sure plentiful in the Appalachians.

[fella]

Good SHTF information.

[Notthemomma]

In a starvation situation, you would eat whatever you can get your hands on, cooked or not.

Two popular media items come to mind:

1) James Clavell’s novel of Allied POW’s held by the Japanense in WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Rat_(Clavell_novel)

2) Dave Alvin’s “Andersonville” song, about Yankee prisoners in the Civil War Rebel prison camp in Andersonville, GA. Beautiful song, by the way, both the Acoustic version and the Studio version.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/andersonville-prison
https://lyrics.fandom.com/wiki/Dave_Alvin:Andersonville
“.....My uniform has faded
And there’s no boots upon my feet
I’m pulling worms out of the mud
‘Cause there’s nothing left to eat
And the rebs can’t even feed their own
So there’s no way they can fill
The bellies of the Yankees
Starving in Andersonville.....”

[Dutch Boy]

I’ve eat quite a few woodchucks over the years. The key is to remove the scent glands and the soak the meat in cold water over night to get the blood out. After that, cook it any number of ways. We usually cook it in a crock pot or Dutch oven.

[gundog]

Someone in the family tree survived Andersonville

As it happens, I live in an area where finding food is not a problem.

[FamiliarFace]

I had a groundhog in my backyard just a few days ago. Got several shots (photos) of him. He was near my bird feeders when I first spotted him in the afternoon. As soon as he saw me, he took off for some shade underneath my deck. He thought I couldn’t see him. After 10 or so minutes, he ran over to the ravine between my house and my neighbor. At that point, I lost sight of him.