Culinary Hunts | 🌭Recipes 🦌 Soup | Loving the Unloved

Published: Fri, 02/06/26

Updated: Tue, 02/10/26

Wild Bites #76: a 7-minute read that makes you smarter about wild food and tells you what's to come on the website, YouTube, or To The Bone.

~ Hank

View in browser:

1. What's Hot Now

Venison soup is a hearty dish for colder weather.

Here's what's trending on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook:

Winter is a great time for slower, longer food projects, like making pasta. One easy-to-form, versatile shape is agnolotti. Fill them with meat, cheese or herbs, they're a fun Sunday dinner project.
It's not too cold to bust out the smoker! And if you still have venison backstrap, here's how to smoke a venison loin. Spoiler alert: It makes the best sandwich meat!
Yes, it's a warm water fish, but pan seared mahi mahi is amazing, and I make mine with a Caribbean flair. Up here in Minnesota, a lot of people are returning from warm-weather vacations, often with fish in tow...
It is soup season, and a hearty venison soup, basically a Scotch broth, will hit the spot every time. Simple and satisfying.
It wouldn't be Wild Bites without meatballs! Consider this week's entry the "ice fishing" edition: German fish balls with green sauce. They're a great way to eat pike, which have extra bones in them. This method gets around that. (Obviously any white fish will work here.) Here's another great pike recipe that does something similar.
If you need the comfort of a hotdish, try my mushroom casserole. I use wild mushrooms, but any kind will do. It's a great potluck option!

Moving up the list: German braised duck, one of the oldest recipes on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, is still going strong. Fantastic with the legs of either ducks or geese.

Love these or any of my recipes? Please rate them while you're there so people searching for recipes know they're worth clicking on!

2. 2026-27 Culinary Hunt Schedule

Hank Shaw serving up snow goose at a cooking school.

Welp, we finally have our hunt schedule set for this year, and it’s a good one. There will be a hog hunt in Texas this spring, then in Oklahoma we’re doing a dove and teal hunt, and then a crane and waterfowl hunt later this year, plus another hog hunt in early 2027.

If you are not familiar, the hunts we do are food focused: our goal is to help you learn how to skin, gut, butcher and process, and most of all, enjoy, the animals we hunt, from nose to tail.

I work with outfitters, who handle the hunts, and after each day’s hunt, we come together to learn the ins and outs of the post-hunt processes. Each night I cook you a special dinner, usually featuring some of the game we’ve been chasing.

Prices are all-in, except for tips and licenses.

New hunters are welcome, but let us know when you book, so we can help guide you through what you’ll need to know and expect once you arrive.

Hog Hunt

Up first is a hog hunt in Jacksboro, Texas, with the folks over at Harvesting Nature. It’s a 3-night, 4-day hunt on a private ranch about 90 minutes from the DFW airport.

This hunt is a wide-ranging experience, and we offer shooting instruction and specialty butchering instruction from experts (besides me). The goal is for everyone to go home with a pig, maybe two.

Dates are May 14-17. Cost is $2850. There are only 12 spots for this hunt, and it will sell out. Reserve your spot here.

Dove and Teal

This hunt for doves and teal ducks will be with Coastal Wings Outfitters in Oklahoma. It’s an intensive trip, with teal hunting in the mornings, then doves in the afternoons.

Bring lots of shells, because both teal and doves are among the most aerobatic fliers of any game birds in America. We’ll be hunting and grilling on this one, because the weather will be hot — perfect for outdoor cooking — and both doves and teal are excellent cooked over open fire.

You’ll arrive September 11 and hunt the 12th until the morning of the 14th. Cost is $2500, which includes lodging, all meals — dinners cooked by me — bird prep, a copy of Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail, and three hunts. There will be lots of action, warm weather, great food. Our last one sold out quickly. Email Larry and Summer Robinson to reserve your spot at coastalwings@yahoo.com

Cranes and Waterfowl

Yep, we’re finally doing another crane hunt! At least that’s the goal. Sandhill cranes are challenging to hunt, and we’re going to do our best to get you on them, but if they’re already too wise to us, we will switch to duck and goose hunting — both are historically excellent in December.

This will also be with Coastal Wings in Oklahoma. You’ll hunt three mornings, with bird prep, cooking classes, and fun dinners each night. I highly recommend you bring lots of quality ammunition to this one, because cranes can be tough to bring down; I recommend bismuth or something similar.

You’ll arrive on December 10, and hunt through the morning of December 13. Cost is $2500, which includes lodging, all meals — dinners cooked by me — bird prep, a copy of Duck Duck Goose, and three hunts. License and tips not included.

Email Larry and Summer Robinson to reserve your spot at coastalwings@yahoo.com

Hog Hunt II

This will be a limited-entry hog hunt with Coastal Wings January 31 to February 3. It’ll also be $2500. I’ll post more about this hunt later in the year. Email Larry and Summer Robinson to reserve your spot at coastalwings@yahoo.com

Questions? Lemme know in the comments.

Get Your Pig Hunt Spot!

Dove and Waterfowl Hunt Info

3. Sausage Party

Winter is the best time to make your own sausages. I've been making them for decades, and it's so, so satisfying: You get to control the grind, spices, fat levels, width of the casings, whether you smoke them or not -- you name it.

It's a fantastic skill to know if you are a hunter, or even if not. After all, most of the best sausages require pork fat. Begin with my primer on how to make sausages, then browse my page of fresh sausage recipes.

Here are some standout recipes I think you'll enjoy:

Start with the classics: Sweet Italian sausage, or spicy Italian sausage. These were the two sausages I grew up with.
Texas hot links are a fantastic barbecue link, smoky and spicy.
I have two brats, a traditional white Sheboygan brat, and a smoked red brat inspired by my time at the University of Wisconsin.
Want a challenge? Try either my recipe for weisswurst, or for German onion sausage. Both are amazing, but require a bit of technical skill.
I make a couple different variations on chorizo: A traditional Mexican one, which is normally eaten uncased, as well as a firmer, cased Argentine chorizo, which is a great grilling sausage.

I have nearly 50 fresh or smoked sausage recipes on Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. Check them out in the link below:

More Sausage Recipes

4. Tragedy of the Common

Wild boar salami on a weathered cutting board.

In a way, I live off loving the unloved: those plants, fish, and game animals so many of my fellow hunters, anglers and gatherers either shun or minimize. I call it the tragedy of the common: Why do we denigrate and devalue those plants and animals just because they are common?

There's science behind this phenomenon. Read all about it in my latest story over at To the Bone. This story is free for anyone to read, but if you become a paid, annual subscriber, I will send you a signed copy of one of my latest four cookbooks for free.

I go into details why here, but the short version is this: Offering a book with a subscription shifts the balance from you strictly supporting me to us supporting each other. Mutual aid, personal connection, and community are the path forward. This is a small way I can do my bit.

Read the Story

5. Deep Winter

The days of this edition of Buck Buck Moose are numbered...

 
It is deep winter here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and it's been a hard one in more ways than one. We have been in the crosshairs of the national political divide these past weeks, and no matter which side you are on, it has been
stressful. I've written a little about it over at To the Bone -- primarily in the context of what can we, as regular people, do to help things, to do our bit to lower the temperature and try to bridge differences. 
 
I've been busy reworking Buck Buck Moose these weeks -- I plan on retiring the old book and releasing a vastly revised, expanded edition this fall. I am removing a few recipes, and adding about 25 new ones, plus updating photos, the recipes themselves, and the techniques in the book. I've learned a lot in 10 years!
If you have any suggestions on how to make the book better, send me a note to hank@huntgathercook.com
 
In personal news, I've been in the gym a lot, and am learning to cross country
ski these days, and it's been going pretty well. My hope is to get good enough so that I can train for any of the many cross country races in Minnesota and Wisconsin for next winter. Wish me luck! 
 
I am also trying to simply slow down and be at peace with the pace of life in a Minnesota winter, re-centering myself and refocusing as
best I can in the face of some difficult personal stuff. My mantra: Trust the plot twists. They make your story better in the end. And it ain't over until it's over...
 
Cookingwise, it's been pretty quiet lately. I am hunkered down, eating simply, mostly enjoying remaking my many recipes -- and not having
to meticulously photograph and document them. Nice to just cook and eat.
 
I've also just started learning German, a language I've always wanted to learn. Who knows? Maybe it'll send me off in that direction foodwise? 
 
Until next time, thanks for reading, and for being you. 
 
~ Hank

Order Borderlands Here!

Comments?

Let me know what you think about Wild Bites by emailing me at hank@huntgathercook.com. If you have a question, comment, or request, fire away!

Order My New Book!

Thank you for your support!

~ Hank Shaw

2038 Ford Parkway
PO Box 212
St Paul MN 55116
USA

Unsubscribe | Change Subscriber Options