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.

[NFHale]

“Whistle Pigs”!!!

Haha! Great name...

[jdsteel]

“The only difference ‘tween a rat and a squirrel is one has a naked tail and the other has a bushy one.”

A squirrel is a rat with a good PR man.

Seriously tho’....squirrels don’t live in garbage piles in the city.

[Augie]

Whistle Pig is delicious. Roasted or BBQ if it’s a big one. Young ones are good chicken-fried.

Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it.

[Vaquero]

I have a freezer still loaded with whitetail. Good on the bbq after marinade in balsamic vinaigrette. Cooked medium rare.

[dfwgator]

Don’t Drive Angry!

[Vaquero]

Bony they say about carp. I tend to eat mostly salt water fish. I pretty much fillet everything. As a kid we cooked the whole fish, peeled back the skin then forked the meat off the bone. I got so good at filleting and skinning that that’s all I do of late. But eating cooked fish off the bone is a flavorful taste you don’t get from filleting.

[MomwithHope]

Have picked off many over the years. Would have to be desperate to eat one.

[gundog]

The carp was challenging to clean. Came out as smaller pieces for smoking. The canned carp in tomato juice in intriguing. Cut it in chunks and cook it up. Two hour drive to carp, though.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Never had one but have eaten many squirrels and rabbits.

[American Infidel]

I can see that you’ve never gone 3 days without food. Do that and you’ll eat damned near anything put in front of you.

I do at least a 3-day fast once a month, and I have gone as long as 6 days without food. After the first 48 hours or so, the feeling of hunger actually subsides. That being said; I get your point, and I would try some well-prepared, well-seasoned groundhog.

[FalloutShelterGirl]

Interesting thread. I love game, however, when I was a kid, my uncle brought my family a large, fresh ground hog. My mom was - and still is - an amazing cook who can do anything with anything. But none of us could stand the taste or consistency of that beast even after all her kitchen magic!

[Alas Babylon!]

And neither do groundhogs or prairie dogs...

I would advise against the raccoons... Some call them TRASH Pandas...

[redhead]

While we lived in Minnesota, hubby’s sister and her family had a large “truck farm,” where they raised vegetables for sale to local markets. one of their side businesses was raccoon meat. They stopped by our farm one day to show us what they were taking to the ethnic markets in the Sin Twitties. The trunk of the car was full of frozen meats that looked like turkeys. Cleaned, skinned, and dressed. Frozen solid. I have no idea what their prices were.

[Tennessee Conservative]

Back during and after the depression a lot of rural people ate a lot of things they don’t eat today. My co-worker swore up and down that groundhog meat is excellent. They don’t eat roadkill or other animals so they aren’t gamey. He said they were a lot easier to hunt that squirrels and rabbits and one would be big enough to feed the whole family. People ate raccoons back then too. Now they just hunt them to work the dogs.

[Tennessee Conservative]

Don’t eat possums. They are nasty as food! Groundhog would be much better.

[JimRed]

The one that lives under my porch is nicely fattened up, but he/she’s more of a neighbor than a potential meal.

[Bob434]

invite it over for dinner lol

[Sequoyah101]

Same thing happened to me yesterday but triple post.

I’d much rather just watch ground hogs than shoot them. They are funny little critters. They come out of their burrow during the day to watch the tractor when I’m making rounds with the mower. I’ll see them come out and sit up when I’ve passed a safe distance and then scurry back into their hole when I approach on the next round. They will do it time after time.

They make a burrow with a hidden entrance that is really not much of a problem to live with unlike gophers that destroy a pasture making it so rough it beats a tractor and my insides to pieces. Gophers I hate, groundhogs are entertaining. Coyotes I shoot and almost all others may pass.

[Moltke]

Farm boy from Virginia I used to work with said his dad would put all kind of meat in front of him and say “meat’s meat, boy”

"Pa, where's granma? Haven't seen her in days now."

[USS Alaska]

Farm boy from Virginia I used to work with said his dad would put all kind of meat in front of him and say “meat’s meat, boy”

As a yute, I lived on a farm owned by Italian family and my grandmother {that came from the same village in Sicily} and they had a constant pot on the wood stove.

The pot contained marinara sauce with heavy garlic and olive oil and every kind of meat that was shot and brought in by the farmer.

It did not matter what kind of animal he shot, once he had it, it was cleaned, braised in olive oil and garlic, deboned and put into the pot.

Meat in the pot was never able to be identified after the first day, except it was meat.

I will guarantee that when we all ate it, no one knew the difference and we didn't care, it was good.