How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
And this concludes everything I know about woodchucks.
I take that back.
I actually also know that they’re sometimes called groundhogs and that one named Phil in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania can somehow predict the weather. Other than that, I got nothing. But I apparently better up my woodchuck game as I have been given the opportunity to hunt one at Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch in Missouri next month during my son’s deer hunt. Owner Donald Hill made the nonchalant offer over the phone. “I promise we’ll do everything we can to get your son a great deer. Oh, and you can shoot a woodchuck if you want. We’re overrun with them right now.”
Sold!
Not knowing much woodchucks however, I sought council with famed local taxidermist Neal Coldwell.
“Hey, Neal, I’m gonna have the opportunity to pop a woodchuck next month. What do you know about them?”
“I know, ‘How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”
Yeah. I’ve already used that.
“I’m gonna be honest. I know nothing about those rat things,” Neal said.
Neal further admitted that he had never mounted a woodchuck – but that he’d love to have the opportunity to do so – and that he’d never seen one in the hundreds of trophy rooms he’d helped create. “I know a guy with over 200 mounts in his trophy room, he’s hunted all over the world and he doesn’t have a woodchuck.
I’m going to be a trendsetter, the envy of hunters the Texas Hill Country over.
“But is still just a big ol’ rat right?” Neil asked. “Can you eat them?”
Good question.
A simple Google search showed hundreds of recipes. I found ideas for woodchuck patties, woodchuck stew, fried woodchuck, woodchuck patties and tomato sauce, woodchuck pie, woodchuck fricassee, and one that said you can use woodchuck in any recipe that calls for chicken or rabbit. Another that said woodchuck is better than veal. I even found a video from someone called The Wooded Beardman who swears fried groundhog skin is better than pork rinds. Maybe that’s why woodchucks are called groundhogs; they taste like hog. Woodchucks are also known as groundpigs, whistlepigs, thickwood badgers, Canadaian marmots, and rats. The latter is probably the most accurate description as woodchucks are rodents. They can reach weights upward of 20 pounds and as such can eat up to a pound of fruit, plants, tree bark and grasses in a sitting. This appetite means that they are fond of damaging crops and gardens and apparently rip through food plots with a vengeance. Such is the case at Oak Creek Whitetail Ranch and probably why Donald Hill is allowing me the opportunity to shoot one for free.
It’s an opportunity I’m looking forward to.
Young is a Fredericksburg resident and avid outdoorsman whose work appears in the paper, Rock & Vine magazine, and other outdoor publications.