Bison size and meat quality

[Iltasyuko]

I have been reading a bit on Bison and have read a few things stating large mature males have less than desirable meat with alott of it going to burger. Does anyone here have experience with the herd in the Halfway River Valley as far as size of the animal and the quality of meat. I assume for better meat go with a younger or middle aged animal.

[tomahawk]

Your right for the most part. I,ve been in on 4 hunts and shot yearling to mature bulls when all was said and done. The best was a 3 yr old bull, worst was the yearling bull and the most meat was last yrs big bull which is of good eating quality and lots of it. The biggest disappointment for me was that after shooting the 3 yr old which was a good combo of meat and wall hanger, I was not interested in another wall hanger so I took a yearling bull and it was not great tasting nor as tender as you would expect.

Here's a picture so you can see what a good tasting bull might look like. This bull was over 700 lbs dressed and is tender and tasty.
http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj230/tomahawktom/Bison09041.jpg

[hunterlaura]

the 5 year old cow my Mom took was delish. Has to be my 2nd favorite meat, right below stone sheep!

[Fraink]

4 yr old bull, nicest meat I have ever eaten. Great recipe for the tenderloins or backstraps; sprinkle with pepper and ground garlic and sear all sides on a grill. Then put in the oven uncovered at 350 untill internal temp is 130.

[steel_ram]

Pretty much the rule for any animal as far as meat quality goes, the younger the better.
Handling after the kill is also very important. A big animal, especially bison sure hold the heat and it is imperitive you open them up, skin them and get them cooling down asap. You don't want them to freeze up on you either.
The one we got was a mature bull. Some fine marbled meat.

[Whisky Creek]

Steel Ram,

I'll agree that it is fine meat, but Marbled????? Are you sure it wasn't a grain finished ranch steer you shot? The bison bull's we got at the end of November had a total of about 1/2 a cup of fat up around their kidneys and that was it. Marbling (intramuscular fat) comes from hot grain-heavy diet and finishing before slaughter. Even for beef, the natural way for the meat to grow, is a layer of sub-q fat over the exterior of the muscle, not heavily marbled within... Which is the main reason why wild game and especially bison is so lean and healthy for people to eat. If good high quality feed is available, and if the species requires it to get through the winter, various wild species will be able to put on a layer of subcutaneous fat on certain areas of the carcass, but visual marbling is almost non-existent.
Sorry, I'm just saying.......
CLINT

[steel_ram]

Yup, the bison we got had fat through the meat. (marbled to me without getting technical) It was a while back, the very first LEH bison hunt, so maybe they were a little tamer back then.

[partner]

Marble is a term used for beef, not bison. At least not wild bison! I concur with Whiskey!

[steel_ram]

Whatever . . . it was different than game meat. Yummy.

[silvicon]

As the old-timers already said:
fat cow, poor bull!

[kendoo]

Sorry but the 4 year old cow I got last year the meat was marbled & very good eating

[Whisky Creek]

Good eating, yes. Got a good picture of an uncooked and thawed steak to post?
CLINT