I know that as a lifelong outdoors person who loves hunting and fishing, I’m lucky to also enjoy cooking the fruits of my outings. As a teenager, my uncle who was a great ‘camp cook’ spent a lot of time teaching me the basics of cooking fish and game. And the rest… well I learned through trial and error these past six decades!

Cooking venison is really pretty easy once one understands it’s a very dry meat that has to be seasoned and cooked properly to retain the moisture it does have. Just about anyone can season a piece of backstrap, dust it with flour and fry it to a golden brown. If smothered streak is the on the menu, all that’s necessary is to add gravy, mushrooms, onions, etc to that fried steak and bake or simmer until tender.

 The majority of my hunting friends enjoy venison cooked to medium rare and I understand their reasoning. If left on the grill too long, venison will dry out. I like all meat cooked very close to well done, not cooked to the consistency of cardboard but no juices running. I sear venison steaks in a cast iron skillet with butter, salt and pepper, jalapeno and fresh garlic. This method keeps the meat moist and flavorful. My friends enjoy it prepared this way as well, but they just want it pulled out of the skillet a bit before mine! 

Game birds require little or no marinating, with the exception of waterfowl. The trick to cooking most ducks and geese is removing the blood by soaking in a saline solution of some sort. Oh, I’ve cooked wood duck and teal that were shot that very day without marinating that were absolutely delicious, but snow geese, gadwall or widgeon require a bit of marinating to suit my taste.

Spring turkey season opens in a few weeks and my favorite game bird, hands down, is wild turkey. So many hunters have been taught that the only edible part of wild turkey is the breast meat which is absurd. I love chicken fried or baked turkey breast but the ‘running gear’ on wild turkey is my favorite. A wild turkey walks untold miles each day from the time it flies off the roost in the morning until returning just before dark. As a result, it has some very muscular (tough) legs. Penned domestic turkey get very little exercise thus their legs require much less cooking. Turkey legs have six or eight feather bones that are a challenge to many game cooks. The trick to cooking turkey legs is long, slow and with moisture. This can be accomplished in a slow cooker or simmering for several hours or in a pressure cooker.

It’s almost time to go after that big mature spring gobbler. But do you know how to prepare the drumsticks? Luke shares his cooking method and more in this week’s column. (photo by Luke Clayton)

I love fajitas made from wild turkey legs/thighs and have developed a method of making them very tender and flavorful. You turkey hunters listen up, now! This information is worth the price of admission!  Place the leg/thigh meat in an aluminum pan or sheet of heavy-duty aluminum foil, coated with olive oil and seasoned heavily with Fiesta Brand Fajita seasoning. Then smoke with pecan wood for a couple hours. At this point the legs will probably be above 160 degrees but so tough a grizzly bear would have a tough time eating them. 

I use a Smokin Tex electric smoker but if you use a conventional smoker, pull them after a couple hours of smoking, add more olive oil, wrap or cover with foil and bake in the oven or damper the smoker down to low heat and cook a couple more hours until the meat pulls easily off the bone.

Then simply pull the little feather bones out, cut the meat into fajita size pieces, place is a skillet with onions, peppers and anything else you might like in fajitas. I usually throw in a couple pieces of chopped bacon to add more flavor. If you ever have wild turkey legs prepared in this manner, bet you will find yourself offering to clean your buddies’ birds for the legs and thigh meat as payment!

Seventh Annual Luke Clayton's Outdoor Rendezvous  in Greenville

 On March 28 at the Top Rail Cowboy Church in Greenville we will enjoy our seventh annual outdoor event hosted on the beautiful oak covered grounds owned by the church. My name is attached to the event and years ago my friend Lee Buffington better known as “Friendlee” and I decided an annual spring event would be well received in northeast Texas.

The first couple years, Mr. Randy Koon offered his 4 acres and then we moved to the more spacious 18 acres of church owned land. Every year the weather has been perfect but there is a big covered arena at the Top Rail Cowboy Church just in case of rain.

A lot of folks ask me what the event is like. Picture campfires, chuck wagons, booths offering everything from jewelry to fishing lores, live music by The Top Rail musicians and blues music by Phillip Farmer. This year our guest entertainers Dodge City Marshal Allen Bailey and his wife Cowgirl Janey will travel down from Kansas to be with us. 

If you are interested in having a booth there, we just ask for a donation to the outdoor ministry please call the church ahead of time if possible but don’t hesitate to just show up early in the morning of the event.  Google gives great direction, just search Top Rail Cowboy Church Greenville, TX.

Admission is free, come set around the campfire with Luke and his friends, make sure and bring a lawn chair! Larry Weishuhn aks “Mr. Whitetail” has been present at all but the first event and Jeff Rice, the producer of our weekly TV show “A Sportsman’s Life” will be filming the event for a future show. Feel free to quiz Jeff with any questions you might have about video photography. We changed the name of the event this year to “Luke Clayton’s FRIENDLEE Rendezvous” in honor of our friend “Friendlee” who passed away this past year.