Antelope Question

Many years ago a friend brought some Elk back and it was so bad that I can't compare it to anything else. It certainly cured me from hunting for them.

'Lopes are another question mark. I'll TRY most anything. I know that they're eaten over a good section of the planet.
 
I should probably shut up and let lopes have a bad rep,but in my experience,the natural forage for them is sage and it works fine.If you do a few things right,there is no "wild taste".It could be store bought.
Cooking does not need to be more complex than: Backstrap,chops,browned in garlic butter.Round,slice thin,cure w/Morton tenderquick,smoke a few hours,dry to jerky
Everything else,shoulder,trimmings,etc,stew meat size pieces,flour them,brouwn them,eat them,maybe a little lLawreys and pepper.Want a little gravyishness? spill a little beer in to deglaze,Yeah,you can go to stroghanoof or ?

But,antelope season is warm and early.Get the hide off fast,and get the quarters in a refrigerator the same day you shoot it.

Ive noticed critters often have a baseball or so sized full bladder.Its real good if you can identify and remove a bladder without spilling it into the body cavity.Really,go buy a nice ribeye,whiz on it,marinate it a few hours/days,it will have a wild taste.Think wire zip ties.

Unless you have a walk-in cooler and can maintain temps in the 30's,FORGET AGING!!! Hanging meat at 68 degrees will disappoint you.

For myself,I bone everything.There is a taste from bandsawing through venison or antelope bone that I do not like.

But really,try ice cube size pieces,seasoned and browned in garlic butter in a cast iron pan.Leave some pink,and try it

Now,I forgot the handle of the gentleman who thought elk was not palatable.

I think perhaps your elk was mishandled.
 
I think perhaps your elk was mishandled.
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+43 on this comment. Elk is one of the best wild game meats out there. While I have a special fondness for Rocky Mtn Muley, I still appreciate elk very much and eat the heck out of it.
The very best piece of wild meat I have ever eaten was a cut from the carcass tenderloin out of an elk. It was 5pm on a 10degree day w/ me still a mile from the truck and half an elk to get there.
Antelope is toward the lower end of the spectrum for me personally but very good when you are hungry. Unfortunately a lot of people tend to compare all of the above w/ beef. You don't compare pork to beef,,right?
elkman06
 
I have killed and eaten at least 8 Antelope. I have only had some ground meat that tasted bad. My experience is that #1. As soon as possible get the hide off and try to keep the hair off the meat. The hair is what tastes bad. We take a box of disposable rubber gloves and it helps to rub hair off the meat. #2 Doe and fawn meat is better than an old buck. Our last trip to Wyoming 7 of us brought home more than 20 Antelope. Nobody complained about the taste. My Wife told me that if I didn't kill anymore deer that was ok as long as I brought home lots of Antelope.
 
I carry atleast ten gallons of water to clean the blood and hair from the critter and to help cool the meat...Most of the hunting in SW Wyoming is done during warm weather and getting the animal cooled down is important. I also believe that little is gained in "aging" antelope as it is a delicate meat. Mine is usually in the freeze within 24 hours
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You nailed it ^

Too many people don't wash it, or cool it quick enough, and then all your work is for nothing. I also hear too many people wanting to hang for several days like it is a side of beef. Antelope has so little fat (read that as practically none) that hanging longer than it takes to cool the carcass is just wasting meat.

My brothers and I also hunt south western Wyoming for our speed goats, and have taken quite a few nice ones. Couple months and we get to put in for more.........can't hardly wait.
 
phoneguy, we got yall beat. 3 of us just returned from NE WY with 15. We brought a box freezer and generator in a trailer. Good cold weather helps! Tasty stuff!
~z
 
phoneguy, we got yall beat. 3 of us just returned from NE WY with 15. We brought a box freezer and generator in a trailer. Good cold weather helps! Tasty stuff!
~z
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Very nice. It's alot of work if you are like us. We bone everything out ourselves. Lots of folks will drop theirs off at a butcher and pick up the meat on the way out of town.
You must have got some extra tags. some of the guys that went with us only wanted a couple Doe tags. One guy bought 4 extra tags and killed all 4 of his one morning. We brought 8 back to camp at one time. Like I said.... it's a lot of work but worth every minute.
 
Yep, we bone everything out also. A 3 man operation with some experienced knives makes it go quite a bit easier. We typically take about 10 mins to process each of em. 2 guys working together on the hanging rack to skin and bone out the carcass one guy on the tailgate boning out the front legs. Separate everything by its final destination: ie hams become steaks or jerky and go into one bag, front legs, rib meat, neck scraps all get bagged up for our sausage grind, hearts, livers, backstraps, and tenderloin all get their own bags. That way everything is much easier once you get home, just a matter of throwing it in the freezer.

And yes, we all got 4 doe tags and 1 buck tag each. Agree, worth every minute

~z
 
Question for you. Leaving proof of sex attached for a doe. How big a piece of meat do you leave attached to the udders?
 
Interesting thing on that…we had a discussion with the WY game warden on that issue. He said if we kept “proof of sex” WITH the meat we were ok. They just wanted to be sure that the lbs of meat vs the tag count worked out. He suggested we keep a “bag of ‘giners” for the proof. So we had a ziplock bag full of our “proof of sex”. Word to the wise, don’t stuff your ‘giner bag in the holes in the bed rails of your truck on a cold day; they will freeze in place and make extraction of said bag quite difficult.


How did yall do it? That was the primary reason we brought freezers, we thought we would only be able to quarter the animals. Fairly unclear in the regs
~z
 
We were told that we had to keep proof of sex attached to an edible chunk of meat. One Warden said if we left it attached to a ham we were ok. Another said a piece the size of your fist was acceptable. We do less than that but we put it in a bag with the tag and label it as Doe#1 etc. and label the boned out meat as Doe#1 etc. We have had a Warden stop and talk to us but never asked about Tags or what we killed. He was just counting how many people we had with us. Wyoming is pretty good about harassing out of state hunters. Lots of $$$ comes in from them.
I have a Friend that actually got the dates mixed up on the two areas he was hunting and killed a Antelope doe a week before Season, dropped it off at the butcher then on the way to the other area he realized what happened. He thought he was busted for sure. Called Fish and Game and turned himself in, assuming the butcher was going to call anyway. The warden said "Well....... I don't want to hear of you guys doing that again" That was it. No ticket, got to keep the meat and go on to the other location to kill his Buck.
 
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