The worst game or fish you've eaten

Bar

Banned
Joined
Feb 8, 2014
Messages
1,623
Location
Colorado
Almost any meat you can mention you don't like. Someone else will say it's the best meat they ever had.
 

IChaseCoues

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Feb 25, 2013
Messages
225
Location
SW MT
Rutting Caribou...... Like nothing else.....5x worse than any rutting elk.
I'm still trying to eat it but have to cook it when the wife and kids aren't home, and still have to cook it outside! I'm going to try to eat it though since I shot it and brought it home from Alaska but will not offer it to anyone else without full disclosure. My niece took home a small cooler of it last weekend. Says she has a chef friend that can make anything amazing. I told her if he does make it edible I'll make the 3 hour drive to have some.

My buddy gave a little to his dog and had to throw the rest in the trash. The dog ate it but the after effects were unbearable I guess!
 

Ray

WKR
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
1,097
Location
Alaska
Late winter ptarmigan are another type of flying liver. Sometimes spruce hens in mid winter are pretty hard to eat. Both will cook up with some strong sauces to reduce the flavor, but its still a pot of willow bud flavored meat.

Rutting caribou from late September to late October is harsh. Its not just the uric acid, its that they don't eat much and are living off their fat reserves while getting worked up for a month over cows. All that ketosis seems to build up some nasty stuff in the meat.
 

ben h

Lil-Rokslider
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
276
Location
SLC, UT
That's funny about the caribou thing, I didn't realize the timing was so important. I've only tried it once and got it from a friends dad and when I put it in my mouth, I couldn't get it out of there fast enough....it was sooo bad. Probably one of those October bulls, but I don't know.

I've never even considered eating a Merganser or a coot, but I am guilty of shooting a few and feeding them to the local badgers. One trick we recently found out with waterfowl is to put the uncooked breast meat into boiling water for about 45 seconds to a minute, you'll know when it's done because the water will have a brown stinky foam at the surface from all the blood. Immediately remove them and put them on an ice bath till they cool down then prepare as you wish. We made duck tacos and they're pretty good.

I don't get the Talapia thing either, I'm not eating anything that could live in a septic tank.....seriously they live in sewage treatment plants in east Asia.
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2013
Messages
2,228
Location
New Orleans, La.
Rutting Caribou...... Like nothing else.....5x worse than any rutting elk.
I'm still trying to eat it but have to cook it when the wife and kids aren't home, and still have to cook it outside! I'm going to try to eat it though since I shot it and brought it home from Alaska but will not offer it to anyone else without full disclosure. My niece took home a small cooler of it last weekend. Says she has a chef friend that can make anything amazing. I told her if he does make it edible I'll make the 3 hour drive to have some.

My buddy gave a little to his dog and had to throw the rest in the trash. The dog ate it but the after effects were unbearable I guess!

Try putting a piece of the meat in an ice chest, and fill it with ice. Let it soak for several days, while continuing to put ice on it. If the water gets bloody, drain it, and keep ice on it. Eventually the red clears up, and the meat should be better. Works really well with roasts. Also, don't cook any of the meat with the bone (debone before soaking in ice water). Some say to put some salt in the water too, that will soak the blood out faster. I never added any salt, I just made sure there was plenty of ice in the water.
*** I have never eaten Caribou. The above is only a suggestion to try to make your meat edible. Since you already have it, I know you want to try to salvage it. Good Luck !
 
Last edited:

topher89

WKR
Joined
Oct 27, 2012
Messages
815
Location
Colorado
Every time I've had Tilapia it has no taste at all. So in that regard, I can't understand its popularity.

I think that is part of the appeal... you can make taste like what you want. Seasoning, marinades and other flavors can help spice it up but you are right, it sucks on its own.
 
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
7,390
Location
Chugiak, Alaska
I've never attempted to eat caribou when they've been in the rut but I have smelled some of the meat and about gagged. I can't say that I've really eaten anything that's been too awful although I'm not a big fan of bear meat. I have killed one spring black bear and we did eat the whole thing but I can't say that anybody in the family really enjoyed it. I've also tried, on quite a few different occasions, black bear meat that friends have shot and I've never really cared for it.


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Murdy

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Joined
Jun 6, 2014
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North-Central Illinois
One trick we recently found out with waterfowl is to put the uncooked breast meat into boiling water for about 45 seconds to a minute, you'll know when it's done because the water will have a brown stinky foam at the surface from all the blood. Immediately remove them and put them on an ice bath till they cool down then prepare as you wish.

That is, I read, the same technique Chinese cooks use to get the skin crispy on Peking Duck. I've done this to a domestic goose, and it came out great (biggest pot I could find, dunked it half at a time). The recommendation was to do it the day before cooking, but that may just be for a large, whole bird.
 
Joined
Feb 17, 2017
Messages
649
Goose.....I tried preparing it 6 ways to Sunday and it never tasted like anything other than warm turtle shit.

I've got an amazing goose recipe for you...takes some time but well worth it:

You breast out the goose and let sit at room temp for 2 hours.
Rub sea salt and crack pepper on the breasts and flip every 30 minutes and add more spices.
Then cut a small cedar board about 18"x14" (enough to fit in a large boiling pot).
Take the goose breasts and nail them to the board you should be able to get 4 breasts on the board...more for lesser Canadians.
Make sure to use a nickel plated finish nail.

Cut 3 large potatoes into chunks, cut one rutabaga into chunks, cut up some carrots, and finally 2 yellow onions.
Put the board and goose breasts into the pot and boil for 45-60 minutes.
Put all the veggies in the pot and bring back to a boil...leaving several inches for the board and goose to fit without spilling water.
Keep an eye on the veggies and make sure the goose is cooked as well.
This usually takes another 20 minutes.

Then take out the board remove the goose breasts and throw them in the garbage.
Eat the board.
 

5MilesBack

"DADDY"
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
15,527
Location
Colorado Springs
Those two whitetail deer my daughter and I shot last December aren't exactly great table fare IMO. And they were completely deboned within an hour of shooting them, one doe and one spike. The meat smelled bad even when we were deboning them, but after sitting in the cooler for a couple days on ice it didn't smell anymore. But the meat still doesn't taste all that great. These were our first whitetails.

I've never had bad elk, rutted up or not. And I've killed a gob of them.
 

Tag_Soup

WKR
Joined
Nov 8, 2016
Messages
310
Location
Middleton, Idaho
My buddy and I decided to go all Jeremiah Johnson in high school and spit roast a jack rabbit we had killed. That turned into a how much of a man are you contest consisting of who could put the most down without gagging...which resulted in a nice puking rally/dinosaur calling contest. I saw Rinella do jack rabbit stew and appear to enjoy it. All i can say is it must have had a very different diet than the walking pile of 3 year old boot laces we tried...
 

NDGuy

WKR
Joined
Feb 13, 2017
Messages
3,886
Location
ND
I've got an amazing goose recipe for you...takes some time but well worth it:

You breast out the goose and let sit at room temp for 2 hours.
Rub sea salt and crack pepper on the breasts and flip every 30 minutes and add more spices.
Then cut a small cedar board about 18"x14" (enough to fit in a large boiling pot).
Take the goose breasts and nail them to the board you should be able to get 4 breasts on the board...more for lesser Canadians.
Make sure to use a nickel plated finish nail.

Cut 3 large potatoes into chunks, cut one rutabaga into chunks, cut up some carrots, and finally 2 yellow onions.
Put the board and goose breasts into the pot and boil for 45-60 minutes.
Put all the veggies in the pot and bring back to a boil...leaving several inches for the board and goose to fit without spilling water.
Keep an eye on the veggies and make sure the goose is cooked as well.
This usually takes another 20 minutes.

Then take out the board remove the goose breasts and throw them in the garbage.
Eat the board.

You totally got me.

I was thinking to myself wtf is this guy doing putting a board with nails into a boiling pot? LOL
 

Eagle

WKR
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
1,069
Location
Western Kentucky
Possum, hands down, never again.

All the whitetail I've shot and the one mule deer have been great, even the old rutty bucks I've killed have been awesome. Could be partially due to them essentially being corn fed (the rutty bucks that is), but even the deer I kill around my home in Alabama that have no ag ground anywhere near them (within 5 miles) taste great.
 
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