How do you do it? Is it as easy as walking around in the trees until you happen to come across one? I'm thinking of doing a central Nebraska porcupine hunt with my boys this winter (if I can convince them to do some cold weather camping). I hear they're around the broken bow area. I assume it's just a matter of finding sign, and keeping an eye out? I hear they're pretty slow and stupid.

We used to find them while grouse hunting. More or less just find them by walking through the woods.

Just curious…no porcupines where I live. Are they good to eat? Or just a nuisance critter to get rid of? Haven’t heard about people hunting them.

I'm assuming you have a use for them? The long yellowish guard hairs, plucked by hand and "bunched" with a rubber band are worth a few bucks, the heavy, longer quills can be removed with a piece of closed-cell foam and collected in a plastic jar and are worth the effort. Also the front claws are marketable, as is the cleaned skull (if not head-shot). Certainly, the carcass is edible as well, but try to remove all the external fat before cooking and they'll taste better, in my opinion.

Yes, dumb and slow. Oftentimes, dozens, or hundreds of droppings beneath trees will alert you to porky's presence. Also, watch the treetops for fresh "barking" of the trees.

I've never really seen someone actually go afield on a bona fide porky hunt.

Jack

Great picture, Gulo!

My friend hunts them, he walks the woods in the early snows and sees the branches littered about under the trees
they're feeding in

Better check with your state DNR, they may be protected.

Any good dog will find them, just let'em go and wait for the yelp.

I have had my best luck with 2-4 decoys and a commercially made call.

I hunted them on snowshoes in winter as a kid growing up on the sheild of central Ontario.I had no Idea if they were protected or not.Looking back I think they were.I cooked them on a spit on an open fire when I would take off to the bush in winter to camp, hunt, and trap for a few days.
They den in rock crevices,and dig down into their mountain of droppings.
They dont go far from their den to feed,and have easily discernable trails packed down in the snow.You can follow the trail to the tree they are feeding on or to their den.They dont dig down too far into their pile of dung and their back end is almost always visible.
You can smell them from a fair distance also.

Another way to find them is to glass the bare maple bush.They are easy to spot-they look like a crows nest in the trees.They spend a lot of time in one tree when feeding.

In central Ontario their preferred food trees were younger white pine and maple.

Porcupines are quite rare in NE Ont,but are abundant in central Ont.

They're not protected here, no license needed for a resident, no season, and no limit. Apparently there used to be a lot in the pine ridge, the game warden I emailed said they're pretty rare there now because the mountain lions eat all of them.

Looking at that picture and I can smell it. Can see a coyote or cat set with urine destroyed, and anything salty chewed on. Dogs, cows and horses with quills that need pulled. Only good thing about lions, they love to eat them, so not many porkies left around here.

What do porcupines smell like?

Keith

If you took an old wet stinky carpet, put it in a bucket for a month, when you suddenly open it, that's the smell.

I used to catch a few in traps back when I lived 30 miles north of Broken Bow. I was going to shoot one in the yard one day and try it for eating until I saw it had little ones. Didn't have it in me that day. Still never tried it.

Very rare on the sheild for a porcupine to have more than one cub.I only ever seen a couple with 2.
In spring,April,just when the snow in the bush was almost gone,you could find a small little porcupine just sitting on the ground under a tree that the mother was feeding in.
Even when small they have little quills and will instinctually whip their tail if poked.

Hahaha during the Porky-rut

It's the worst wild game I've ever eaten but we may not have done a good job cooking it over a open fire.

Tried eating them twice and haven’t enjoyed it. Perhaps didn’t trim the fat as gulp said. They are fairly commen in Alaska. Even in the mostly open country of western Alaska. Have sold them to taxidermists and probably sold skulls. Try dorsal skinning a porky sometime. Novo has a good grasp on how to find them. Helps to have snow on the ground.

Probably like the pile of dung they burrow into to sleep! I remember reading in an outdoors mag they shouldn't be killed willy nilly because in a survival situation a starving man can walk them down and kill one with a stick.