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.

[Vaquero]

Yeah. I hear you. My calabrese grandmother(father’s mother)would always have a pot of sauce with any manner of meat in it. But not a farm. An apartment in the Bronx. A neighbor down the street from my mother(whose parents were napolitano)when she was growing up used to sit out in the backyard (a few blocks away. From my grandmother’s) with a BB gun shooting songbird. When she questioned him, Mr Ricci would say “ah, it’s a good for the gravy” (what we used to call sauce back in the day In The Bronx)

[Tennessee Conservative]

Me too. We live and let live around here. We don’t shoot anything that is not dangerous to us or our dogs. Still, they are good eating from what I hear if we ever fall on hard times. :-)

[Sequoyah101]

If the time comes I’ll do what I have to do. Until then I’ll do what I want to do.

[reformedliberal]

I would advise against the raccoons... Some call them TRASH Pandas...
____________________________________________________
I’ve cooked and eaten raccoon.

1) boil in 2-3 changes of water after cutting off all the exterior fat.
2) layer with chunks of peeled sweet potato and cover the contents with bacon.
3) roast @350 until bacon and sweet potatoes are done. (long time ago, so I don’t recall time).

Tender, flavorful, rich dark meat. A little satisfies.

[polymuser]

“Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it.”

Yep. Ate lots of different game, including snake and turtle. Found gator and duck nothing special. I’d try bbq whistle pig no problem.

[Tennessee Conservative]

Me too. We don’t kill anything unless we’re forced.