When I was 14-15 years old I had a single shot.22 and I was in the woods as much as I could get away with. I even skipped school sometimes to be there. I shot porkies and coons when I came across them, brought em home and my grandma would roast em in the oven.
If you cut off as much of the fat as you could and removed the kernels (glands) from under the arms they were delicious, a sweet dark meat.
Some years ago in deer camp I was telling the guys about how good porcupines were to eat. Of coarse they didn't believe me but as luck would have it I came on one in a tree the next day. He was low enough for me to put an arrow into him so I brought him back to camp and cooked him the way grandma did. The guys ate him and sucked the bones.
Another story, My wife and I were bow hunting deer on State land one fall camping in our tepee. I shot a porkie out of a tree with my Big Five Longbow and cleaned it for us to eat.
Our camp was near a small marsh that had one of those bird houses on a pole. A DNR Biologist hiked in the day I shot the porkie. He was there to check on the bird house. When he discovered our camp he stopped to talk. He spotted the porcupine skin hanging on a limb and ask, "did you shoot that with your bow?" I told him yes and that he was in the pot cooking for our supper. He looked surprised and said "most people shoot em and leave em lay."
He said, "I can't wait to get back to the office and tell them I came across a couple deer hunting with longbows, camping in a tepee and cooking a porcupine they killed with a bow...they're not going to believe me"
Then there was the time...well, maybe I'd better save that one for my memoirs .
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