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Game is good, whether you bag it or buy it
(page 1 of 3)
For many, the initial thought of a wild-game dinner is anticipation of the hunt. That can be a months-long process. First, apply for and score an elk tag for a coveted area. Next up, summer scouting missions; walk the terrain quietly throughout the season looking for game trails, places where an animal has bedded down. Note thickets of the foliage the wily wapiti like to eat.
Ready the camo outfit that never comes inside the house—except for the occasional washing in baking soda—plus the boots, hat, gloves. Practice with your bow and/or sight in your rifle. Round up the bone saw, plastic garbage bags, tent. Sharpen your knife. Replenish your ammo supply, new copper bullets instead of the old lead. Not only will the scavengers drawn to eat the gut piles be lead-free, but the meat on your table will have no shards of the potentially health-harming heavy metal. [See “Getting the Lead Out” on page 68 for more on this.]
The afternoon prior to opening day there’s the walk in; the pitching of the tent; the watching, listening, waiting. And no campfire; just a quiet, cold dinner. After trying to grab some sleep, you’re up and out, still in the dark. Luck and timing have as much to do with success as do a clear shot and steady hands. It could be hours, days, weeks of waiting for your chance. Or it might never come—this year, anyway.
If and when your future dinner is harvested, the real work begins: dressing, skinning, hauling out, butchering, and wrapping. Then, at last, into the freezer it goes.
Other folks take a different approach to game for dinner; it’s dining preceded with the adjective fine. In this valley, we have the elegant option of checking out the local dining guide and reserving a table. That’s all it takes.
The entire article can be read in the Winter 2012 issue of Jackson Hole Magazine.
