SPORTS

But I don’t like eating game meat. Really

Published

2 weeks ago

11/26/2025

By Luke Clayton

Hunting seasons are well under way and chances are good many of you already have afreezer well stocked with everything from venison steaks and ground meat to dove breasts.

Let’s not let all this tasty meat get freezer burned! We will discuss some ways to turn thefruits of your hunt into some memorable meals in this week’s column.

Game meat is far more nutritious than domestic but it does require different cooking techniques. Take venison, for example. Venison is very lean and what fat there is in themeat should be removed; it’s the fat that sometimes contributes to the ‘gamey’ taste that some folks complain about.

I’ve been eating game meat all my life and learned much of what I know about cooking game from an uncle that was a ‘sure nuff’ old time Dutch Kettle cook. He made a pot of squirrel and dumpling that I have yet to duplicate. No canned biscuits for uncle, he made his dumplings the old-fashioned way by rolling out dough. I can still see that old Dutch kettle setting on the outside of the campfire coals slow cooking those squirrels.

I am often asked if wild hogs are good to eat or ‘doesn’t venison have that ‘gamey’ taste. I’ve found it impossible to answer these questions with a blanket statement. I often reply with something like this: “If you were going to a hog farm to purchase your pork chops, would you choose the oldest boar?

Likewise, you wouldn’t choose an older bull for your rib eye steaks! Younger game animals in good condition obviously make better table fare than older ones. This is not to say that venison from older bucks, if prepared properly, is not good eating. I always use the center ham cuts, tenderloins and backstraps for steaks and grind the rest for sausage or, add beef fat to it and make venison burger.

Because of its ‘dry’ nature, larger cuts of venison must always be cooked with moisture. I’ve slow cooked many venison hams with the result a flavorful, tasty piece of meat. Slow cooking at low temperature is the key to preparing roasts from game animals. I usually season the roast well with my favorite dry seasonings and a couple of bay leaves, and using a sharp knife, make incisions into the roast and insert pieces of bacon, slivers of garlic and onion or jalapeno pepper. Then, covered with slices of fatty bacon and a little butter on top, I place the roast in a covered cast iron kettle and bake slowly for about 10 hours at 200 degrees.

The meat falls off the bone and is well received at the dinner table when served with carrots, potatoes and onions (which I add to the roast a couple hours before serving).

Making BBQ from these larger cuts is another great way to please crowd at hunting camp or home. I do a lot of my cooking on an electric smoker and I’ve found it to be a very easy, carefree method of tenderizing larger, tougher cuts of meat. I simply place the roast in a double layer of heavy duty foil, add BBQ sauce and allow to smoke uncovered a couple hours, using hickory, plum, peach or pecan wood. Then, wrapped in the foil, the roast is allowed to smoke at 190 to 200 degrees for up to 12 hours or so, or overnight. This method makes some of the best tasting, most tender BBQ imaginable. I often smoke cuts of wild hog, which have flavorful fat, with venison and blend the two for chopped BBQ.

Chicken fried venison steak is better tasting than the best beef round steak, to my way of thinking. I use a tenderizing mallet and pound the steaks, adding dry seasonings during the process. Then, I cover the steaks with milk and refrigerate several hours before frying. Dipped in an egg batter and dusted with the flour, the steaks need only three or four minutes on each side in hot oil.

Drain the steaks, chop and sauté an onion in a little of the remaining oil and pour a big can of mushroom soup (with a little water) and you have smothered steak! Put a lid on the cast iron skillet and bake or cook on the stove top over low heat for an hour or so to tenderize; serve with hot rice and hot dinner rolls.

Preparing and cooking WATERFOWL requires a bit different technique but if all the duck dinners you have been served in the past tasted like ‘liver’, chances are pretty good the cook didn’t have a clue on how to prepare and cook ducks and geese. Lanell Holland, my wife’s cousin, was married to the legendary waterfowl guide the late Jack Holland.

Through the years at their hunting camp in Southeast Texas, Lanell has served waterfowl many different ways; everything from duck or goose gumbo to jambalaya. She is a stickler for prepping waterfowl before the cooking process begins. Years ago, she instructed me in the proper way to prepare duck and goose breasts.

“It’s the blood in the meat of waterfowl that can give it the strong, liver flavor. Remove the breast halves and butterfly them. Then place in cold water and, using your hands squeeze the meat. This greatly aids in removing the blood in the meat.” she instructed.

I often use tenderizer mallet to tenderize the breast halves, and then place them in a pan of cold water with a little salt. Waterfowl breasts, prepared thus, are excellent when wrapped in fatty bacon and grilled or, believe it or not chicken fried just like venison steaks. Served with hot biscuits and cream gravy, Bryan proved to me it’s tough to distinguish the flavor of duck breasts from chicken fried venison!

Quail and dove can be prepared and fried just like chicken. The late Bob Hood, longtime Texas based outdoor writer and great friend, came upon a method for preparing quail that is the best I’ve found. He places a couple rows of Ritz crackers in a plastic bag and crushes them into a fine meal. Next, in a Dutch oven he melts two sticks of butter, and then coats the quail pieces (or chicken wings) in butter, then covers them with the Ritz meal.

Cooked for about 1 hour, the quail are a golden brown. The Ritz meal batter is crunchy and adds a great deal of flavor to the game birds.

If you’re new to cooking game and game birds, hopefully these tips will serve as a good place for you to expand your culinary skills. Making great tasting meals from game animals and birds is really no great feat but it does require a bit of common sense and adherence to a few basic rules. In no time, I expect you will develop your own list of ‘favorites’!

Contact outdoors writer Luke Clayton via www.catfishradio.org Listen to his weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” just about everywhere podcast are found.

SPORTS

Nocona girls compete in Bowie

Published

3 days ago

12/04/2025

bowienews

Nocona’s girls basketball team has turned things on since the close of a successful volleyball season, going 4-0 in the Hoopin’ through the Holidays Tournament at Bowie High School.

The Lady Indians opened Monday with a 39-17 win over Holliday. Nocona got out to a 12-4 lead after one with Aubree Kleinhans outscoring the Lady Eagles by herself with five points. Jasmine Olivarez had three points while Sy Parker and Bayler Smith each added two tallies.

A slow second quarter still had Nocona outscoring Holliday 4-2 with Baylea Wallace and Kleinhans scoring two points each to extend the lead to 16-6 at the half. Holliday outscored Nocona 9-6 in the third. The Lady Indians had just one basket from Jolie Rose in the frame. Wallace and Kleinhans combined for the other points via free throws. Nocona still led 22-15 heading into the fourth frame.

For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.

SPORTS

Lady Rabbits go 3-1 at home

Published

3 days ago

12/04/2025

bowienews

Bowie went 3-1 in the Gayno Shelton Hoopin’ for the Holidays Tournament Nov. 24-25 at Bowie High School.

The Lady Rabbits opened with a 61-25 victory over Millsap. The Lady Rabbit press helped enable Parker Riddle and Payton Holt to stake Bowie to a 6-0 lead in the game’s first 1:05. Bowie’s defense continued to frustrate the visitors but the Lady Rabbits went more than three minutes without scoring until a pair of Riddle free throws broke the string.

Riddle continued a hot hand with a basket and 3-pointer with Laney Segura adding a free throw moving the lead into double figures. Bowie forced Millsap into 20% shooting in the first quarter. The Lady Rabbits were at just under 35% (8-23) but still led 19-6 after one quarter.

For further details, pick up a copy of Thursday’s Bowie News.

SPORTS

Comorants are here for the winter

Published

3 days ago

12/04/2025

bowienews

By Luke Clayton

Love them or hate them, cormorants have flocked to lakes and private waters in Texas to spend the winter months roosting on standing timber on our lakes and devouring both baitfish and gamefish as though there is no tomorrow. With their sharp hooked bill and ability to remain underwater for extended time, they are very efficient fishers. They are well known for decimating the game fish population in private waters.

I first learned about cormorants and their fish catching ability nearly forty years ago while in Japan with a company that was establishing a mail order lure business there. Back then bass fishing was a craze with affluent Japanese and expensive bass boats from the US were commonly seen on private waters in Japan.

My job was to cover a fishing match between Rex Bridges, a popular Texas angler and Soramachi, the then reigning bass champion. IJ spend a couple days fishing with the outdoor writers for the Tokyo newspaper. One of them who spoke pretty good English pointed out a flock of cormorants and told me many of the older men trained the birds to catch fish for them. They tied a little noose around the bird’s neck to allow them to catch and swallow small fish, but the larger fish were caught in a pouch on the bird’s throat, to be eaten by the fishermen. We stopped fishing long enough to observe an old gentle with about six cormorants on leads. I think he was doing guided tours with his birds for tourists. What I remember most is when the birds surfaced, he pulled them inside the boat and they ‘coughed up’ some good-sized fish for the old gentleman.

Back in those days, cormorants were not nearly as prevalent in Texas waters during the winter as they are today. I assume worldwide, their numbers are threatened. They are currently protected by the Federal government but tell that to a landowner that has just had his summer stocking of largemouth bass eaten by a flock of cormorants!

I guess by now you have surmised I’m not fond of our winter feathered visitors. I like to catch and eat the same thing they do but I follow creel limits-the cormorants do not! But the cormorants have helped lead me to many winter catfish cookouts. How might you ask? A couple decades ago, a fishing guide invited me to go SPLATTING with him and write a column for the newspapers. Splatting, he explained, was fishing around standing timber in the shallow end of the lake. The birds roost in the dead trees at night and their dropping literally whitewash the limbs. Their droppings attract both blue and channel catfish in large

numbers and catching is often red hot during the first couple hours of daylight each morning.

Splatting is the perfect term to describe this method of fishing. Usually from 30 or so yards away, far enough so as not to spook the fish, baits set shallow under a floater are cast up close to the trunk of the tree. The baits make a “SPLAT” when they hit the water, letting nearby fish know that a cormorant has again send breakfast his way. A bit gross I know but it’s a fact of nature. Catching fish under the cormorant roost trees caught on quickly and most savvy catfish anglers today know the technique. Many use the heavy weighted popping corks used on the coast for speckled trout.

If you’re a cork watcher and have never experienced a morning of splatting, I suggest you put it on your to-do list. The bite is not tentative like a sunfish biting a nightcrawler or crappie nibbling a minnow, When the sound of food hitting the surface is telegraphed down through the water column to catfish, they make a beeline for the surface and it’s first come, first served! I’ve watched several greedy catfish fighting near the surface for the bait. It’s best to rig with at least 20-pound test line and a rod and reel strong enough to handle a big blue. It’s not uncommon to catch trophy catfish using this method but most will be in the 3-to-10-pound range.

Splatting is a run and gun style of fishing. Usually, two or three fish will be landed around each roost tree and then it’s time to bump the trolling motor and head to the next tree. Usually, the action begins to slow after a couple hours of sunshine but on cloudy days, it’s often possible to continue catching fish throughout the day but not nearly as well as the early morning bite. Catfish are opportunistic feeders, and they learn when the food supply is best, after the birds have spend a night in the roost tree dropping partially digested baitfish into the water.

When it comes to bait choices for splatting, the sky’s the limit. It’s hard to beat chunks of cut bait from rough fish or shad or even pieces of cut sunfish. Punch baits also work well, they just don’t stay in the hook as well as cut bait for reparative casts. It’s important to keep maximum pressure on the fish as soon as he’s hooked. Chances are very good there will be lots of submerged limbs to get your line snagged on. This is where stout rods with plenty of backbone and reels with strong drag systems come into play. If you’re in the mood for a big meal of fried catfish at deer camp, this is a good winter pattern that is sure not to disappoint you, let the cormorants mark the trees you need to fish beneath. Visit Luke’s website www.catfishradio.org Check out his weekly podcast “Catfish Radio with Luke Clayton and Friends” just about everywhere podcasts are found.