The anual Easter porcupine hunt

[yorketransport]

For the third year in a row my father-in-law, Dan, and I held our Easter porcuine hunt. This year Easter happened to fall on April 12, which is Dan's birthday, the 14^this my wife's aunt's birthday, and the on the 11^th my wife and I celebrated our 7 year anniversary. So we had one large gathering in recognition of everything.

As usual Dan and I snuck out for a quick walk before dinner was done in 45 minutes. It was a beautiful day for a walk with the usual deer and elk sightings right off the bat. I got a few good pictures before the batteries died in my camera. An hour into out "quick" walk we spotted a blonde patch at the top of the road as it makes a bend. Out first thought was that this was a particular bull elk that hangs in the area. He has a very distinct blonde coat. As soon as we got a better look at it we realized that it was actually a blonde colored porcupine. After the little guy double timed it into the brush and made a run up a tree, I decided that I couldn't pass this one up. One shot to the back of the head as the critter was abour 35" up the tree and it was all over.

The biggest disapointment to the whole thing was my shot placement. I really wanted to do a European mount of the skull, but the shot went in at the base of the skull and out the mouth, taking out most of the front teeth and shattering the skull. Perfect shot making porcupine stew though.

The funniest part of the 4 hour "quick" walk was that on the way out we spotted a second porcupine running full speed away from us down the road. I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get much video, but I did get a little of him when he hit the brush. Since one porcupine is more than enough, we let the second one live to kill a few more trees. Here are a couple of interesting pictures from our walk that some of you might enjoy.






The bear are still up and moving down here. These claw marks are no more than 2 weeks old.



Happy Easter everyone, enjoy some time with you families. I know I certainly have this weekend.

Andrew

[GRIMJIM]

Man that sounds like fun. Also a nice family tradition. How come you didn't hold it up by the tail?

Where are you at? Sounds like northwest somewhere. My uncle in U.P. Michigan shoots a lot of the on his property.

How is porcupine stew?

[yorketransport]

I'm in western Washington. I get all of the porcupines in a small retirement town called Ryderwood. My wife's grandmother lives there. The town is at the end of a highway in the middle of nowhere. Full of elk, lots of deer, a few bear, cougar, bobcats, coyotes, and all the small game you could want. It's not unusual to see elk eating flowers in somebody's front yard.

The land around town is owned by the Campbell Group, so it's all gated and locked except for during hunting season. This makes it prime habitat for the rest of the year. Walk 10 minutes and you're sure to see something interesting.

As far as porcupine stew goes, it isn't something I'd crave, but it's not the worst thing I've eaten. With enough veggies and garlic it's not bad. The strange part is the strong pine flavor that you get from the porcupine. This was the second time made it and it's by far the best way to cook the little critters.

It's a lot of fun. I've been told that porcupine's reproduce very slowly, so I don't go out of my way to shoot every one that I see. But I don't think that one or two a year is going to have a catostrophic effect on the population. Besides, the timber company says to shoot every single one that  I see.

[tripper]

The taste should not be strange as they taste like what they eat the most of, which here in MN is the bark off pine trees. Thats why the logging company says shoot all you see, they kill the pine trees by eating the bark.

[yorketransport]

The logging companies out here say the same thing about shoot every porcupine that you see. I've been told that at one point there was even a bounty for them. I'm not in the habit of killing just for killing, so for now some of them get to go free. As soon as I get a good system down for skinning them though, things might change. Right now it's such a hasle that I'm only up to it once in a while.

[lastchanc54]

I got a young one once and baked it in the oven with lots of barbque sauce. Tasty! Everyone like it!