This is the first of many posts of hunts throughout my life. There is no chronological order to any of these and the reason I am doing them is so I can reflect on my hunt, share my story, and go deeper into why I love the sport of hunting.
Before last fall, I never really understood why people went turkey hunting. I mean. $21 to go out and hunt a wild turkey which can easily dry out, is small, and potentially has an off taste. Also, around Thanksgiving, turkeys go on sale and you can get three of them for that price. In 2011 I decided to adopt or create a new rule about hunting. I would research any wild game animal that is legal to hunt and considered edible and I would hunt it, and see if I can make it taste good before I decide if I don’t like to hunt it or not. This rule came about due to the fact I have many friends that hunt waterfowl, ducks to be more specific. My friend had said that ducks around southwest Colorado are only good in soups and for gumbo. To his point, I tried the gumbo and it was amazing and I was convinced for the time being that I would not hunt ducks. Well, a few years after that, another buddy of mine had cooked up some wild duck for lunch in town one day. The duck was just salt a peppered and grilled until medium and I was blown away. Went out and bought me a duck license the very next day and have been hunting them ever since.
Because of this I decided to give turkey a shot. 2012 was a big year for me as far as new game and hunting success and I was headed out to “The Ranch” to support one of my best friends with his bear hunt. Chris has the same philosophies about hunting game. If we can make it taste good, we should hunt it. We try and get in as many long weekends of hunting each fall as we possibly can and because going out to support bear hunting is a good time, I thought I would pick up a turkey tag just in case the opportunity arose
Drove out to the ranch on Thursday evening after all of shopping was complete and we knew we would be at the very least, eating well all weekend. Friday was spent searching for bear. Did a lot of tracking early in the morning at first light and thought we were on to one but it had seemed we were a few weeks too late to the area. More on the bear hunting later. Saturday morning we got up early and did the same but in the afternoon, I decided it was time to break away from the group and head up into the mountains to find some turkeys.
I love my hunting buddies. Great group, always laughing, and generally we have a great time regardless of our hunt success. Sometimes though, you have to get out on your own to clear your head and focus on the hunt. As I have said many times, the hunting gods reward effort and that is what it was time to do next. I put on 6 miles walking up the river and back down. Came into a group of turkeys a few miles up but the Hawthorne bushes were so thick, all I did was get cut up going in after them and I never got close enough or open enough for a quality shot. With daylight running out, I decided to hike back down to the ranch.
Turkeys are not known for calling in the fall. That is more of a spring hunting method of hunting but I gave it a shot anyway. Not one return call all day. As soon as I got back on the ranch, I sat down near my pack, broke out some sausages from dinner the night before and after the first bite, I heard a turkey not 10 yards from me in the oak brush. I quickly and quietly grabbed my shotgun and flanked the turkey and waited for it to come out of the brush and onto the trail and that is exactly what happened. As soon as its head was exposed I got a shot right at the birds neck and dropped it. Hunt success.
Now, there are some that say, “just breast out the bird, there isn’t enough meat anywhere else” but that is just not how see things. When I get game, I handle it with the utmost care. I try and get everything cleaned as soon as possible and save everything I can. After a few pictures I quickly got to work gutting and plucking the bird. Saved the gizzard, heart, and liver for an appetizer that night and started plucking as this would eventually be our Thanksgiving turkey.
I have not had a lot of experience with heart, liver, gizzard and other organs (offal) until this year but am learning how to use them effectively and coming to appreciate their flavor. Whenever I try something new, I like to try it with little seasoning and flavor additives as it is very important as a chef to know what each ingredient brings to each dish. For the heart, liver, and gizzard we did some simple salt and pepper and a little bacon fat to saute them up. The heart was actually my favorite out of all three as it had good flavor and wasn’t all that tough. For the gizzard, we had removed the membrane and gave it a little pounding to help tenderize it before frying. The gizzard was decent and will be used moving forward in a lot of stews and other dishes as it does have a strong flavor. Finally was the liver. I have to be honest, the liver sucked and in fact, it took a few days to get the damn taste out of my mouth. I am not sure if I will keep it the next time but probably will and make sure to use it in a gravy.
Plucking a turkey is a lot of work but worth the effort very much rewarded. We had my first turkey for Thanksgiving dinner and it was amazing. I have heard stories where wild turkey’s are dry and have a gamey flavor but it was not the case here. I brined the bird overnight in a light salt and brown sugar solution and smoked it for about 4 hours in my pit with oak. Before I put the bird in the smoker, I took a can of chipotles in adobo sauce, made a compound butter and stuffed that under the skin. The turkey was juicy and tender and ensured that I will be hunting turkeys for many years to come. I saved some of the turkey for our future “game game” and used the bones for stock that I use for soups and sauces.
Not related to my turkey hunt but a very notable addition to the day of turkey hunting is the picture below of my friend Randy holding up his coyote pelt. As I was hiking up north to get my turkey, I heard a shot off in the distance and this was the outcome of that shot. I hear it was an amazing shot with the coyote running full speed. One of the best hunting days on the ranch and a weekend I will remember forever.
