First sighting

[bang]

Went to check out new hunting place. Came across this.

Either never have seen one or didn't recognize before.
A Porcupine.

 

[longcruise]

Looks like a porky alright.

 

[poker]

They seem to go in streaks around here. I have seen dozens some years and just a couple other years. I really dont miss them. They raise cain with the pine trees around here. One winter we were gone for most of it and they killed about 30 nice 20’ pines in our yard.

 

[Ames]

Common as squirrels up here in central Maine. Open season on them year round.

 

[Juice Jaws]

Use to see a few a year but now I have not seen a porcupine in years, dead or alive.

 

[Grimord]

Fishers are the only animal in North America that will kill and eat a porky. Where you have Fishers, you won't find very many porkys.

 

[Brokennock]

Fishers are the only animal in North America that will kill and eat a porky. Where you have Fishers, you won't find very many porkys.

No,,,, I kill, and eat porkys. Lol.

 

[dragnetbill]

They seem to go in streaks around here. I have seen dozens some years and just a couple other years. I really dont miss them. They raise cain with the pine trees around here. One winter we were gone for most of it and they killed about 30 nice 20’ pines in our yard.

This one was molesting my squirrel hunt; and, no doubt about to do tree damage.

 

[Treestalker]

Is it true they taste like chicken?

 

[Walkingeagle]

Is it true they taste like chicken?

Doesn’t everything?
No, they don’t. They have their own taste, but not anything foul. Very mild in fact. Quite a light color meat. That is if my memory is not failing me. Only ever ate the one and was way back about 30+ years ago. I do remember the biggest piece of meat was in the belly, which my old trapper grampa told me to be sure and make your cuts from the side when you open them to remove the internals. Rest of it makes good soup though, just break it down and boil bone in.
Walk

 

[Ames]

I'm loaded up with Fishers, porkys and skunks.
Cant kill the skunks fast enough. When I do the foxes drag them off.

 

[Zonie]

I don't think the porky is protected in Arizona but I heard that years ago it was.
The reason given was, the porky is one of the few animals that is easy to kill with a large stick and if someone was stranded or lost and out of food, eating one of them could save your life.
The belly doesn't have quills on it so gutting and skinning one isn't as hard to do as one might think.

Anyway, probably just another old wives tale but it does make for an interesting story.

 

[TGJaeger]

I’ve heard that they are very good eating but only if paired with India Pale Ale...

 

[Ames]

Would take a lot of pale ale for me to kill one with a stick and eat it.

 

[hawkeye2]

Common as squirrels up here in central Maine. Open season on them year round.

Do they still pay a bounty in Maine? We got $.50 per porky when I was young. My mother was town clerk and they had to bring in 2 feet to claim the bounty. She hated that and I had to dispose of the feet. There are no porkys here in the Valley and I don't miss them at all.

 

[Ames]

No bounty. The lumberjacks hate porkys so much for what they do to the pines that they pick em off with small arms. It's a shoot em all situation up here. Last 3 times I took a hike just hiking, not hunting, there they were. On the trail and in the way.
About the most common road kill up here. You could slide a mile on the grease splats.

 

[Brokennock]

Is it true they taste like chicken?

No. Closer to pork. This all the names and nicknames that have pig references. I've read that there wear times that barrels of salt pork would be "cut" with porcupine meat to stretch the actual pork throughout more barrels
The belly has no quills, and, the quills are directional anyway, so as long as one doesn't handle a live one, or run one's hand from tail to head along the back, there is no reason one should get injured cleaning one.

 

[Juice Jaws]

I don't think the porky is protected in Arizona but I heard that years ago it was.
The reason given was, the porky is one of the few animals that is easy to kill with a large stick and if someone was stranded or lost and out of food, eating one of them could save your life.
The belly doesn't have quills on it so gutting and skinning one isn't as hard to do as one might think.

Anyway, probably just another old wives tale but it does make for an interesting story.

That's a old story, heard it out here also.

 

[Griz44Mag]

No,,,, I kill, and eat porkys. Lol.

They may be great meat but cleaning them is something else altogether.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

Build fire. Throw on porky. Eat.

Paraphrasing Ted Nugent here. It's pretty much the way the Indians do it.