I just got home last night from a weeklong Survival Gathering. I met Dylan Cochran last year. He owns a photography company and did some filming on a series of Umarex airgun hunts last year for me. One thing led to another, and I was soon lined up to do two Knife seminars and a Processing demo this week at something he called the Sawtooth Survival Gathering. Hazen Audel runs the event, which is held at the Sawtooth Lodge out of Grandjean.
As stated above, I had two seminars, and then he had me bring up a goat to show people how to process their big game. He also had Bruce McGleen do the processing with me. He runs a program named Human Nature Hunting School. Sounds like a unique deal. He holds weeklong schools at his ranch in Washington designed for people who have never hunted but wish to do so.
I arrived at the Sawtooth Lodge, they fed me and then Bruce and I started on the goat. This event worked great for me. I’d just received six Buck Knives to test, three of which are designed for skinning/processing big game. If not for this camp, I’d have had to wait until fall to test them. So, on most of the eviscerating/skinning, Bruce did the work while I photographed him using the knives.
Attendees were super attentive, which always makes it more fun. At the same time, there were multiple classes going on. Atlatl/archery range. Mushroom class, survival skill class, basket class, pottery and bead classes, leather working and some guy had a class where people could make oars or guitars, horse riding and who knows how much else that I’m forgetting. That’s one bad thing about being an instructor: you don’t have much free time to hit the other booths.
We showed them how to gut the goat and then skin it. Bruce pointed out a lot of the offal products (Internal organs) that are eaten by others around the world. I think it was Hazen that said the natives up in the far North even eat the paunch (Grass in their stomach) since vegetables are scarce up there.
Then of course there’s the norm, heart, liver and kidneys, which most Idahoans don’t utilize. He also covered how the intestines are used as the casing for sausage. I use collagen casing a lot, but intestine casings are more permeable to smoke, which I favor.
We soon had the goat ready to hang and chill overnight. It’s best to age your big game when possible, but many times it’s too warm but it was getting down in the lower 30’s so we were able to at least let it go through rigor mortis which will make it more tender. I slightly opened the seams on the round, which allows more of the body heat to escape.
The next day, we processed the carcass. I was excited about this since I’d spent 45 years in the beef world doing that. I took what I learned in the beef world and applied it in my hunting world. I like to show people how to pull out obscure cuts, like the tri-tip, flank steak, shoulder, eye of round, etc. and how to cook them. Not a right or wrong, it just enhances your eating pleasure.
Then I conducted two 'HOW TO SHARPEN YOUR KNIFE/CHOOSING THE PROPER DESIGN' seminars. All outdoorsmen use a knife, but I bet that less than 5 percent can sharpen one. There are a lot of weird knife designs on the market. In fact, most of them are dysfunctional.
The bad deal about being a presenter is that you’re tied up and don’t get to attend all of the other seminars. I wish Katy could have gone. She could have taken notes and taught me what she learned. One really informative class I did get to attend was a mushroom-picking class put on by Kelly Chadwick. He knows more than everyone else I’ve ever encountered combined. He was shooting out info so fast that there was no way that I could absorb it all. He was over-the-top knowledgeable.
I like woodworking, so I’d like to have been able to attend the guy's class on making oars, guitar (Whatever you call the stem on a guitar). And I’d like to have been able to mess around with the atlatl.
As we close, everyone was super friendly to me. (As in one night I sat at a table by a couple while eating dinner. They bought me a huckleberry milkshake. The next evening, the same thing from a young couple. That’s like depositing $100,000 in my retirement account!)
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