I'm heading up north of Fairbanks on a drop camp. Just me and my guide. I have tags for grizz, moose, caribou and wolf and gear for grayling and pike.

Camp meals from game taken have always been some of my best memories.

This is my first trip up north and am hoping you guys could share some of your memories of meals that make your mouth water.

Thanks

chunk of moose backstrap on a willow stick roasted (don't over cook) over a birch or alder fire

pilot bread with sharp cedar cheese & a slice of raw onion

hot tang to wash it down

I had several memorable meal from Guide Bob Jaro back in 2005 while on a moose hunt in the Alaska range. Moose heart was fried up after the kill, and it was good. Bob, though, was a flapjack specialist. They were alway to perfection.
I also remember fondly eating goat backstrap in the rain for my 40th birthday.....thanks Bob Warren.

Fortunately many of my trips for fur, feathers or fins have included good eats.

In the Brooks Range I have dined on fresh sheep fillets and fresh grizzly steaks. Moose camp has always provided plenty of fresh heart and tenderloin. Additionally as I have frequently hunted moose on or near a salmon stream, silver salmon has been available. I even took a caribou one time just because the shot presented and I could and we ate some that night. Usually while king fishing we eat some fresh fish. While hunting waterfowl we have breasted geese and grilled them on a driftwood fire.

There seems to be always something to eat in Unit 17.

about day 5, we got into the caribou
mt house and grayling, couldn't
hold a candle to caribou liver sliced thin and threaded onto a willow.
roasted till it started to pop and sputter...
shee fish and tabasco sauce is a close 2nd

After being on the trail 12-14 hours a day while up there (Alaska), just about anything tasted great if I could muster enough energy to cook it.
I do remember paying $40.00 for a plate of chinese food in Kotzebue after 8 days hoofing it on the tundra. Nothing is cheaper to make than Chinese food and in 1984 that would have bought the best meal in town back home however the dinner in Kotzebue ranked among the best I ever had after freeze dried food and some moose meat for 8 days.
Those hunts we did in those days were on your own hunts with a friend. We were too poor to hire a guide.

EZ

we flew in supplies for some sheep hunters for a outfitter who will remain unnamed. they had been on the mountain for 2 weeks and finally connected with a ram. we dropped off a 55 gal barrel (bears) with a nice fresh pie on top. the guys came off the hill and readied for a feast of fresh sheep and pie. the sheep meat was excellent, but when they cut into the pie, out rolled a moose nuggest. Yup moose nugget pie

After a hard six days of hunting Moose on horseback in the Farewell Burn in Alaska with a Boone & Crockett Bull on the ground, we finally got to chow down at about 10:00 PM. Fresh killed tenderloin, fried taters, canned fruit and Tang with plenty of Vodka. Best meal I ever put in my mouth. The Northern Lights were brillient that night, or was it the Tang. Good shooting.

quote:

the sheep meat was excellent, but when they cut into the pie, out rolled a moose nuggest. Yup moose nugget pie

haha awesome, i'll betcha its a good thing you were many miles away that night

Are frist meal of a BWCA canoe trip are good steaks cooked over a open fire. With hopefully fresh walleye fellits on the side with patotes ect. Very good something to look forward too.

I remeber 3 camp meal very distinctly in 3 seperate areas. In '88 I took my first dall sheep in the Brooks Range and after a very long day and 2 DIY rams taken we sat down to sheep tenderloin, canned potatoes and freeze dried peas. That was just f--kin' gourmet. Several years later we shot a moose in the AM and deboned and pack out the whole thing that day. Same menu but with medium size moose tenderloin. My buddie's comment was "I felt like puking but it was so good". Tanzania in '03. Fresh Thomson's gazelle chops medium rare with all the fancy fixing. Oh, My God!!! The best venison I have ever eaten.

Mark

I have had a lot of good eating in hunting camps and lots of memorable dinner times on hunts but every time I think of meals and hunts the following story always makes me chuckle.

The year I got my Bighorn Sheep tag had some memorable meals. That year between climbing fourteeners to get in shape, Sheep scouting Deer, Elk, Antelope and Sheep hunts I spent about 65 nights afield. During the Sheep scouting and hunt I had figured out a meal plan that although boring kept me energized and going strong.

Three days leading up to opening day I was scouting everyday from before sun up till after dark, then I would hike back to camp, cook and eat my meal and fall asleep. Each night I swore I would wash out my cook pot but never got to it and each morning when I woke up to cook breakfast the pot was sparkling clean but laying in a different place around the camp fire ring, I assumed the wind had blown it over.

A friend of mine showed up in camp after dinner the night before opening day to help me with the hunt. In the middle of midnight he wakes me up to tell me there is a bear in camp, every time I try to listen for it I fall back to sleep while listening to it. Steve says in addition to the Bears heavy breathing and footsteps padding around the tent he said he kept hearing a metallic jingling sound as well.
When I woke up in the morning Steve had not slept a wink. We went out by the campfire and found my cookpot once again licked clean by the bear!
The jingling sound was the wire bail on the cookpot that was making noise as the bear licked up the last of my pasta.

You can make a memorable meal by using some of the meat from whatever game you kill as long as you have the following ingredients:

-Onions
-Potatoes
-Celery
-Black olives
-Mrs. Dash seasoning
-Extra virgin olive oil
-Vinegar
-Your favorite sausage (just in case you don't kill anything to eat).

a. Peel, cut the potatoes in small chunks, and let them boil in a large pot

b. Cut the olives, onions, celery, and the sausage in small pieces, and fry in the olive oil at high heat uncovered (to let the steam raise from the ingredients and keep them crunchy). NOTE: if the sausage is uncooked, you want to start frying it first, and then add the other ingredients a few minutes later. The same for game or any other meat (fry it first)

c. When the ingredients are almost fried to your liking, add some of the Mrs. Dash, let if fry for a minute or so, and then add some vinegar (about 1/4 cup), and let it fry a little more

d. Drain the potatoes, and now grab the frying pan with the ingredients, and pour the ingredients over the potatoes in the large pot

That's all there is to it. Add salt to the meat on your plate only if you need some more, since sausages usually are salty. The potatoes take about 20 minutes to boil, which should give you just enough time to fry the ingredients. Timing is critical since you want the potatoes and the ingredients just as hot. A final note: you can use any kind of meat, from poultry to snake if you like. It will still taste good.
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If you don't want to try this meal at the campsite, try it on your kids at home, but outdoors since the smells will drive you out of the house Kids just love this meal, so be ready for cooking it often, for they will ask for it.

From time to time, I hunt with some of the local Indians (moose camp) here in our village. Indians just luv porkys, lynx, ducks & fisheaters, and any beaver they see in the river. They pretty much boil everything and barbecue the porkys.
All that stuff I can pass on but one thing I really like is the moose head soup. The meat nx to skull & jaw is real rich and the soup is pretty good. You skin the head, scrape the meat/fat off the bone, break lower jaw out; get all that meat, and cut the nose into real small pieces that will boil down. Tatoes, carrots, macaronie, whatever ya got goes in. Fry bread & moose head soup is traditional when you are cold & wet with snow starting to lay; good stuff too.

Best meal out hunting-
I was in British Columbia, Spring bear, 2003-
The cook took me down to the fishing hole, mountain stream, early one afternoon. I caught trout out of the mountaain stream, he cooked it up and I feasted and fished at the same time!!! I have had way more gourmet food and none as enjoyaable!!!!!!

Oh Man, this is just what I was hoping for in response to this post. I really appreciate it.

I was hunting deer with three of my brothers a few years ago in central Utah when an early blizzard hit. We had been hiking and hunting all day long in the mountain snow and returned to the truck extremely hungry. We realized however, that we had left our lunches back at home 60 miles away that morning. A quick inventory of our packs and the truck turned up several cans of kippered snacks, a box of vegetable flavored crackers from Wal-Mart, and a handfull of green chile hot sauce packets from Taco Time. We were cold, wet, tired, and famished, and that meal of crackers topped with canned smoked fish and hot sauce tasted pretty damn good. It was definately the most memorable hunting meal of my life.

I was Brown Bear and Caribou hunting out of King Cove Alaska with my brother-in-law that lived there two years. I was lucky enough to take a 91/2 ft. Browny and after scrapping the hide for two days we reprovisioned our Salmon boat and were awaiting departure for the Caribou hunt. My guide, a close hunting buddy of my Brother-in-law had hired a cook for the Caribou hunt that worked in the Crab Cannery in town. We pulled up under the Cannery dock and waited for a few minutes when suddenly the Cook came running to the skiff with five huge cooked Crabs and a bucket of hot butter. We took this to the Salmon Boat we were to hunt out of and feasted then and there on the hot Crabs fresh out of the Cannery cooking pots. Fresh home made Cocktail Sauce and the Crabs with the hot butter, a heaven made meal I will never forget. Good shooting.

I recall a meal as the worst shit I ever ate, our boat took on water forcing us ashore on a windswept rock. We radioed for airlift but were socked in with no hope of it arriving . On day 3 I shot a seal of some type and tried to cook it over some troxi fuel wrapped in kelp...God I was hungry but not THAT hungry!!!!

A few years back in Idaho, 3 of us took off on foot a couple hours before first light for a long hunt. Four hours in one of the guys shot a buck in the leg, and of course it took off into the nastiest crap you can imagine. To make matters worse, the buck was a squealer, clearly not worth the effort that would be required.

After the "what the hell did you just do?" looks, and "are you retarded?" questions we set off after the wounded buck.

Of course the two of us who didn't shoot made the idiot who did, go into the worst stuff. He subsequently got lost and earned the nickname "GPS".

As darkness started to approach we were still more than 8 miles from camp, Rick was just finding his way back to us, and the buck was finished by another hunter 3 ridges over. To say the walk out was a long one would be a dramatic understatement.

As we drug ourselves back into camp, the rest of the group was half in the bag with their feet around a warm fire. They were kind enough to have saved us some venison stroganoff made with meat from a buck killed the first day of the season. That stroganoff was the best thing I had ever placed in my mouth up to that point in my life.

Of course, I was hungry enough to have eaten the ass out of a dead rhino, so my frame of reference may have been slightly skewed.

quote:

Originally posted by Degas:
I recall a meal as the worst shit I ever ate, our boat took on water forcing us ashore on a windswept rock. We radioed for airlift but were socked in with no hope of it arriving . On day 3 I shot a seal of some type and tried to cook it over some troxi fuel wrapped in kelp...God I was hungry but not THAT hungry!!!!

Wow! Great story. Obviously you made it out... How?

My most memorable meal was eaten after the first deer kill of the 2002 season on Kodiak. We hunted ptarmigan on the bluffs overlooking the Ayakulik and added them to the venison and vegetables sandwiched between two grates/grills. We slowly cooked it all over a hot bed of coals on the beach of the confluence of the river and the massive breaking waves. A meal I'll never forget.

Two meals--or menu items--come to mind again and again. First was river hunting up the Yuki and then coming out to stay the night in Ruby. We ate Alaska surf and turf--freshly killed moose and freshly caught salmon.

Second time was caribou/black bear hunting with my daughter an hour by air east of Aniak. Second day she killed a nice black that had blueberries in its carburetor and blueberries in its tailpipe when it died. Because the weather was so warm, we ate most of the bear by the time we were done with the hunt. Can't remember better bear medallions!

Red stag tenderloin with abalone and trout in NZ ain't bad either.

Dave Manson

quote:

Originally posted by Kenati:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Degas:
I recall a meal as the worst shit I ever ate, our boat took on water forcing us ashore on a windswept rock. We radioed for airlift but were socked in with no hope of it arriving . On day 3 I shot a seal of some type and tried to cook it over some troxi fuel wrapped in kelp...God I was hungry but not THAT hungry!!!!

Wow! Great story. Obviously you made it out... How?



Not much to tell, captain hit a rock and split open the hull when we were trying to move through a dense fog. Water poured in through the hole as captain ran for cover around the point heading for the other side of the island. Boat got too sluggish so we decided to run up between some rocks on the lee side of the point butonly made it to the rocks 1 mile out before the screws quit. Threw out to sea ancjors and called for help but the damm fog was thick as jelly so we sat there for 4 days waiting the copter or someone else foolish as we had been to come by. My belly started to grumble on the evening of day 1 by day three we eaten the emergency crackers an drank the bottled water. So I took the boat's rifle and shot the seal in the head as he bobbed by eyeing us. God he smelled bad and tasted worse...decided to wait till I really was hungry to try eating any of it...luckily the orange & white rolled up before I needed to!

On one of my brown bear hunts it was instant oatmeal for breakfast every day. I like oatmeal so that was no problem with me.

Late in the hunt I thought I saw something strange in the oatmeal. It was dim light in the tent so I shined a light on it.

Thats what I thought - corn. There was corn mixed in the oatmeal. We had corn the evening before for supper so I assume the guide was just making good use of it.

Anyway he was cooking so I did not mention it although he saw me shining the light on it and chose not to say anything about it either.

This is not really a meal, but it was memorable coffee. The camper we take on hunting trips has a Mr. Coffee that we always use. Well a couple of years ago it started acting up. The first pot would work just fine but the next ones would come through real slow. It went that way for a couple days before I decided to take it apart. Well you know the little tube that the water goes through when it gets hot? That tube had something in it. I got a small piece of wire and pushed out a real nice swelled up mouse turd. When the water was finished going through the tube the heat would dry and shrink it back down, hence the first pot in the morning worked great. Every cup of coffee we drank was filterd through that turd. We all still talk about our mouse turd coffee.

quote:

Originally posted by SCHALL53:
...pushed out a real nice swelled up mouse turd.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is one I'll not forget soon about coffee.
We were up the Yukon river after moose in my brother's boat. The boat he had taken halibut fishermen out on all summer. When we needed spring water for the galley I would take a bucket and walk to the spring on shore. On about day 4 my brother asked me "why do you alawys take my client's puke bucket to shore to crap in it" when I replied I've been using a spruce log for my crapping stool we both figured out real quick which bucket I had been hauling drinking water in!!

I have two meals that stick out in my mind from my hunting travels. One is the homemade tuna fish sandwich my aunt made for me after my very first hunting trip. She topped it with red bell peppers, shredded carrots and romaine lettuce still wet from being washed. I remember eating it on a wooden bench table outside in the sun on their 80 acres in Northern CA. Didn't get a deer, but saw some great scenery and have yet to have a sandwich as good as the one my aunt made for me.

The second meal was breakfast at this little Mexican restaurant in Hondo, TX. Fresh made flour tortillas hot from the oven. Beans, tomato, lettuce and a meat in some sort of gravy. The food was great, but I've never had tortillas quite like that before. They were thick, almost like naan or a pita, but absolutely fantastic. A very good breakfast and a great hunt as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Degas:
...figured out real quick which bucket I had been hauling drinking water in!!

Hahaha!!!! Another great coffee story!

Of all the Alaskan and Canadian hunting I've done (something like 12-13 hunts) the food that most stands out was on a spring Brown Bear hunt on Kodiak, back in 1985.

While we had good stuff like an entire New York Strip, and a big ham that was great, was really stood out was the seafood on that hunt. Clams that we dug, halibut that we caught, and most of all...66 King Crabs that our group devoured. 'Subsistance' never tasted so good!

You'd think that a chef would wax eloquent about all the hoity toity food. I'm the most basic eater when I hunt.

My hunting buddy does this-Kraft dinner cooked with a chopped onion in it and a jar of home canned salmon added along with some hot sauce. It's simple and I don't have to cook it, I've enjoyed that one a few times and it's always memorable.

The other was one of those self heating meals, I forget what they're called. The one where you add the water to the little pad and it steams away. Anyway the same buddy had an extra one on a hell of a cold day and I gladly took it off his hands! It was nothing short of fantastic.

Sometimes its the most rudimentary feed we remember to go along with the best/worst of our hunting times. If I'm cold and there's something hot, it's just so damned good.

the chef

The best tasting one was the first night of a Maine Eider Duck Hunt. 2 1.5 pd lobsters, a l pd of steamer Clams and a pd of mussles. All on one plate. Simply amazing.
The most rewarding meal was after shooting a bear at last light on Vancouver Island, with 1hr of skinning and an 1.5hrs back in the bush truck ride, we got back to the cabins at 1:30 am. It was chinese food night, and let me tell you what, it tasted AMAZING. Dead beat and Hungry as heck, that was a good meal. Slept in that night for the first time in Years.
W.

Although I was lucky enough to have never hunted, or camped with them. A longtime lady friend that used to be camp cook in elk camps around Powderhorn CO named Alice.
Told me she used to gather up perfectly shaped horse apple's for the newbie's in camp and fix them for morning biskits.

Some of the guys would eat a bite or two and toss 'em, or just pass them up totally. Now & then someone would take a bite and after tasting would comment: "Alice, this biskit taste's like shit!" Then everyone else would spit out a mouthful and look things over. Guess she had quite a sense of humor. All the old hands already knew about it so they'd pass.

Any of you ever hunt with them??