Wow, here we are and it’s already late July! The year sure has been an interesting one. Spring kept ahold of us for an extended period and about the time we wished it would warm up a little, it really did. Now that it’s full-fledged summer, it won’t stop warming up. Lake temperatures are so hot that for the time being I put my musky gear away because any fish I caught would likely die from the stress. Yes, it sure has been a weird stretch of weather for us.

So what have I been doing? Well, actually a lot. From bear baiting to trout fishing to working out to getting in shape for an archery elk hunt I have been able to fill up my days. I also did some experimental cooking of wild turkey legs and thighs. Because I’m guessing that some of you have had thoughts about that I’m going to tell you about it.

When I first started turkey hunting, I never used to save the legs and thighs because the word was that they just didn’t cook up very well. Among other things, I heard that they were too dry, had too many tendons, and were just too tough to bother with. For those reasons and the fact that I just didn’t know how to go about cooking them provided enough self-justification for tossing those parts out along with the rest of the unusable parts. As my successful harvests rolled on I felt a little guilty, so a few years ago I started to save the pieces. I figured the worst thing that could happen was the meal of turkey leg/thigh experiment wouldn’t work out.

That brings us to the latest and greatest attempt at cooking up wild turkey legs and thighs. Previously I went with various versions of the crockpot slow cooking method for the simple reason that the longer I cooked that leg, the easier it would be to separate the meat from the threads of long bony cartilage that makes the lower leg. For the record, those are called ossified tendons but are more commonly referred to as a pain in the butt when you are trying to cook a turkey leg.

This year I went with a tried-and-true method that included everyone’s favorite: bacon. Show me a person who doesn’t love bacon and I’ll show you a person who has never tried bacon. Bacon is so awesome that when you wrap meat in it, it makes it better. If you’re an archery elk hunter, you know the value of keeping bacon in camp. It’s the one stop seasoning wrap that makes a grouse breast the main course of camp meals. It also works in Moose Junction, Wis. during October snipe hunts. With those experiences to draw from, this year’s cooking experiment was set.

I fired up my pellet grill. I wrapped my turkey leg and thigh in bacon using toothpicks to hold everything together. I consulted with my life advisor for some direction and Google told me to preheat the grill to 250 degrees Fahrenheit, cook for 1.5 to 2 hours, and get the internal temperature to 155-160 degrees.

How did it turn out? Actually it was pretty good with the exception of the ossified tendons. It was like eating a northern pike without removing the Y bones. The only thing I will change the next time I make it is to bone out those two pieces of meat and remove as many as those tendons as possible. Oh, I’ll probably use more bacon. Everyone knows that more bacon is always better.

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