I had always heard about the poor quality of waterbuck on the table, but the absolute tastiest meat we had in July in Tanzania (with buff, sable, & topi to compare) was WATERBUCK. Steaks and shish-ka-bob. However, after shooting a baboon for leopard bait, we did decline when the "head waiter" asked if we wished "filet of baboon" for dinner. I was disappointed when we moved to another camp, and the leopard backstraps were lost.

Thanks for confirming what I have often been told, namely, that waterbuck, far from tasting bad, actually taste quite good.

We used mine for lion bait, so I couldn't find out first hand.

My wife and I had some waterbuck in a camp in the Gwaii Valley it tasted fine, although a little tough. Our PH said that if the hair of the waterbuck touches the meat it will give it a strong flavor.

Steve,

I have no experience with eating waterbuck but I will tell you loosing the backstrap from your leopard was very unfortunate. You missed some really fine eating.

Mark

The trick is butchering the waterbuck very carefully. You can't get any of the "oil" form the skin onto the meat as that is what spoils the taste....

Bwanamich,

You are absolutely right. When I skin a Waterbuck I use 3 people, 1 skinning and the other two keeps the hair of the skin away from the meat. The skinner may not touch the skin with his hands. If skinned properly it is very tastefull meat.

I had waterbuck in kigosi; it was as good as anything else. My biggest problem with meat in Africa is everyone likes to overcook it. We had an American PH in camp named John Miller (he is a damn good PH, too) who battled the cooks every night until we got our meat med rare.