doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Fish dinner

You mean you're supposed to wrap them? Does that apply to squirrels too?

Emmett Boylan

Gil,

It only takes a few seconds to draw a bird with a gut hook. Wonder if it would make a difference, the way you freeze them?

SRH

I have frozen birds whole, feathers on as well. Hunting buddy told me about it. Sounded odd until I tried it. Nice option after a long drive home.

I have too. But, never with the guts in them. Maybe I'm missing out on something?

SRH

Or not...Geo

I wanna see the pictures of the cooked fish and veggies!

I always try to gut them as soon as I can. Want to cool down that meat. But to each their own.

It's a Woodcock thing. Frenchies cook'em guts in. Gil went to France on a trip and hasn't got over it yet..Geo

No more pictures until I get home ( can't do it from my cell).

Lloyd, apologies for hijacking thread, but I'll keep the ball rolling until you get home. Until last year I always gutted birds the day of the hunt. Two years ago, I either read somewhere or was inspired through a flash of pure laziness that freezing birds intact kept them fresher by better protecting them from freezer burn. I understand the argument in favor of immediate gutting. However, bad juices from shot wounds are already in the wound channel and freezing them in place would not worsen the effect. That�s been my experience with woodcock the past two seasons. I took a pair last weekend to Floyd with some fresh chanterelles and he was amazed at the freshness of flavor of the birds. I only freeze woodcock intact but see no reason not to do other birds the same way other than the storage issue. Geo, I don�t parade dead birds in front of my wife and the frozen woodcock are kept in a cardboard box inside the freezer which keeps them out of sight and also prevents odd shape frozen objects from falling on my toes when I open the door. I appreciate some aspects of French culture, especially French guns, but cooking the birds with guts intact is not an aspect of French culture that I share. Julia was in town last week and I thawed out dove and woodcock for her smothered in fresh wild chanterelles. She Bogarted the wc and chants and I ate the dove. She raved about them. I rarely breast dove and like to cook them whole, plucked and drawn. Here�s a photo showing the relative size of each. The dove were late October and the WC, January. I flash cook the birds on high, indirect heat on the grill. With lid down, the temps exceed 500 F. The dove cook to my satisfaction in 5 minutes and the wc, 7. I rigged a vertical roaster out of a wire coat hanger which holds 4 birds. Here are two wc I cooked earlier this month. Note the color of the cooked wc�s flesh.

Just ribbing you Gil. Looks delish; especially the chants...Geo