The title of this thread reminds me of my first moose.


In the early 80s I was lucky enough to draw my first Montana moose tag. The first bull that I saw had a huge body and carried 50" wide antlers. A single 180 grain Partition from my .30 Gibbs put him down after a 40 yard run. Luckily I had a hunting partner and my two horses to get him back to my truck.


I should have known something was wrong when I stopped at the F&G check station and the first thing that the biologist said when he looked into his mouth was "Wow! You've got a real gummer here." His back teeth were worn completely down to his gums.


When I got him home, I hung him in the shed for a week to 10 days then proceeded to butcher him.


About that same time I had bought a new microwave oven. The cover photo on the microwave cookbook showed some very delicious looking BBQ ribs. Since I just happened to have two very large slabs of fresh moose ribs I decided to try their recipe.


I followed the recipe instructions exactly. My microwaved ribs looked just like the picture on the cover of the book, and they smelled delicious.


So I sat down and cut off a bite of the rib meat and began chewing. The flavor was great, but I chewed, and chewed, and chewed. And the bite in my mouth actually got bigger. So I spit the meat out and cut it in half, and started to chew one of the halves. And I chewed, and chewed, and chewed without the bite getting any smaller.


I never did get a piece chewed small enough to swallow, so I finally gave up and got out the peanut butter jar. I then cut the remainder of the ribs into 6" pieces that I pressure cooked and my golden retriever enjoyed them for several months.


I then took out all of the carefully wrapped packages of moose steaks and roasts from my freezer, thawed them and ground them into burger, double ground for maximum tenderness.