Wild game consumed in your home

[Hunting Wife]

For the guys who are close to 100%, what do you need harvest wise to make it through the year? I would like to go 99%, but I'm not a very succesfull hunter.

There are just two of us. Last year I killed one antelope, one deer, one elk and my husband killed one deer. Plus between the two of us a bunch of waterfowl, grouse, huns and pheasants. Then we’ve been slaying the walleye this summer so there’s a lot of fish this year too. The specifics sort of depend on the year. We usually don’t fill all our tags because we just don’t have room for it all or need that much meat.

We usually share pretty generously with friends and a family we know who have kids and live on one income.

 

[3855WIN]

Due to health issues, the wife doesn’t eat red meat anymore. When my son was still home we’d eat around five whitetails per year and hardly ever bought beef.

 

[np307]

For the past couple years I've only been able to kill 2 whitetails and 1 turkey each year, which I can stretch to around 30% of the meat we consume including sausage, though it is cut with pork fat. Some things just can't be replaced by wild game, such as Lexington style bbq. Smoked venison is good, but that delicious pork fat is irreplaceable. I'm hoping to increase my efficiency this year and take at least one more whitetail (we get up to six here, but public land limits how achievable that is), plus I'm going on an antelope hunt so I'm hoping to add at least one of those into the mix as well. maybe this next year the percentage goes up to 50-60%?

 

[magnum44270]

For the guys who are close to 100%, what do you need harvest wise to make it through the year? I would like to go 99%, but I'm not a very succesfull hunter.

Usually 1 antelope, 1 buck whitie or muley and 1 whitetal doe a year gets eaten up within the year. Add an elk to the above and it gets ate up in 2 years.

 

[jmveverka]

For the guys who are close to 100%, what do you need harvest wise to make it through the year? I would like to go 99%, but I'm not a very succesfull hunter.

My in-laws have been living with me for the past year+ so I had 6 mouths to feed this year. For my meat budgeting I figure we eat 4-5 lbs of deer per week plus the occasional social event where more is consumed. My goal last hunting season was a minimum of 5 deer in the freezer at around 35-40 lbs of meat per deer. Was able to put 6 in there and still had a little bit of Antelope left from the year before. We probably have about 20 lbs of meat left and I can start shooting deer in three weeks.

 

[cgarner]

My family (2 adults and one kid) will eat 4 antelope in a year. We would need at least one elk in the mix to be a 90 - 100% wild game family

 

[Walkathon]

For the guys who are close to 100%, what do you need harvest wise to make it through the year? I would like to go 99%, but I'm not a very succesfull hunter.

I'm at probably 80% and my household is just 2 people, me and my wife. We consume 2-3 deer and usually an antelope. We supplement with some chicken and a small amount of pork for grinding with deer. I usually do a 90%/10% ratio of deer/pork. It's pretty lean.

 

[ashersdad]

Other than the occasional chicken all of our meat is elk, deer, or antelope. With the boys hunting now, we eat alot of it. We have 4 elk tags and 3 deer tags this year so we are trying to empty the freezers. We are starting to can alot more of the meat and we do alot of burger since we can use it in so many different recipes. Jalapeno and cheese elk sausage is almost a daily breakfast as well.

 

[JohnDeereGreen]

Probably around 90% in my house. Am fortunate to typically get an elk and a deer most years in MT. Perhaps an antelope sometimes. That is plenty for the two of us, and sometimes we have enough to help out friends or family that were not as fortunate. My wife buys chicken, and I like to eat saltwater fish-tuna, cod, salmon etc. Have decided to go on a long range trip out of San Diego this year in an attempt to catch some of my own fish for the freezer. Am a lousy bird hunter, but someday I hope for her to not have to buy as much chicken.

 

[sbhooper]

I kill 10-40 deer a year, plus an occasional antelope, and elk. My freezer and lot of others gets filled. For the most part, we eat deer, antelope etc., except we do buy chicken and pork some for a variation. This summer, I won half a beef, so now we have venison, pork, chicken and beef! Lots of choices, but none better than venison.

 

[corndog1]

Our wildgame consumption is elk, antelope, and hopefully lots of greenheads

 

[MN_Bowhunter4]

Hard for me to put a percentage on because I'm the only one who eats wild game. I'm probably somewhere around 50% personally, and the other half is chicken/pork/fish that is store bought. I'm hoping to get into turkeys this fall and plan to again in the spring, so that'll add to it a little.

 

[SticksMcKinley]

If your family is eating meat in your home (not out to eat), what is the likelihood that it is wild game?

I'm only a one or two tag a year guy, and my wife doesn't love the idea of wild game--so I'm probably in the lowest category. I often end up sharing with friends and eating it myself.

I never thought my New England mother-in-law would touch wild game. All I heard was "poor Bambi" every time it came up. Somehow over dinner one night, maybe it was the Chardonnay, she decided to try an antelope burger. We went from "Bambi" to "delicious, with hints of sage" in about 3 bites. Good luck with your wife's wild game taste. A couple of things I'd suggest would be taking over all of the kitchen duty on wild game night and keeping the preparation out of sight until it's ready. Maybe that would help. Chardonnay ain't a bad idea, either.

 

[lr123]

I have been seriously slacking in the past few years with only generally eating some waterfowl and pheasants. This year I have three antelope tags and a combo whitetail tag(2 does and a buck) in my pocket currently. If I can harvest 3-4 animals I can significantly increase our wild game consumption.

 

[deer_shooter]

For the guys who are close to 100%, what do you need harvest wise to make it through the year? I would like to go 99%, but I'm not a very successful hunter.

Its just the wife and I and we both hunt. In Pa, we can get up to 4 tags each and we have been out for antelope 6 of the last 7 years. If I had to guess, I'd say we need around 5 deer/antelope for a full year. I've also been fortunate enough to get a three mule deer, a coues deer and a cow elk in the last 5 years so we have had an abundance of game.

 

[SaskHunter]

All red meat consumed in our home was killed by myself or my wife. All harvested turkey, goose, game bird, rabbit also gets eaten. Chicken and pork is normally store bought.

About once a year I'll buy myself a porterhouse and cook it on the BBQ but that's about it.

 

[ShadowFast1]

I love eating wild game! I brought home two doe last season. Unfortunately, despite a successful hog hunt, we didn't bring any of that meat home(Old stinky boars). The downside of all of this is, other than my three year old that doesn't know any different, the rest of the women of the house don't care much for venison! So we've had to purchase a lot of meat from the store to not burn out on deer. Hopefully next year's hog hunt will fill the freezer with some pork and keep everyone happy and out of the meat department.

 

[MTGomer]

I am 28 years old and have purchased red meat from a grocery store exactly one time. It was this summer, we had a party and bought some carne asada to grill.
I’ve also bought fish around 10 times.

 

[Eric.MN]

For the wife and I with two little ones we eat mostly wild game meat. Never buy red meat, but we do purchase chicken. Also we do add pork to our sausage making so you could figure that in as well.
Last fall we had half a elk, two deer and one antelope added to the freezer.

 

[SagebrushSlayer]

Family of four, eat on average 1 elk, 1 mule deer buck, and 2 WT/MD doe each year. Raise our own beef, but once or twice a year will buy Wagyu steak/tri tip/brisket. Chicken is the only meat we buy at the store. Luckily we have had salmon, halibut, cod, and rockfish the past few years as well. To me a full freezer with home raised or wild produced meat is the pinnacle of eating good.