I have had one mule deer from the big woods of BC in the Kootnay mountains. That was the one that was not great and had the hide left on while my dad drove home and butchered it two days later. I have had two mule deer from Alberta. Both of which, while slightly different than white tail were quite good. Both of those came from Alberta farm land. Perhaps you are right about the sage brush habitat changing the flavor. I have never had mule deer from sage brush desert region.
its the same conversation as beef. Beef on grains is better than grass fed beef, there is a different taste - you might not mind it and thats fine, but its definitely different. Now that step of grains to grass take it another step further away - sage There is nothing to argue over, we all agree it taste different, some of us just don't like it.
Kill a rutted up mule deer buck during the late season and you better like snacks, sticks and sausage because that’s all it’s good for. I don’t care where it’s come from.
I never knew this about mule deer, you'd think you would hear more about it. So what about the whitetail that live amongst them in the same browse/food sources? Do they also have a distinctly different taste than your typical midwest forest deer?
Nothing like a northeast whitetail in a boom acorn year. Yum!!! although I had a farm country saskatchewan deer that was mostly milo fed. That was pretty good too
I have really only eaten whitetail from three kinds of areas and have only ever had one that wasn't fit to eat. I've never had whitetail from a sagebrush area. All have been from either farmland or 4000' elevation timbered area (my property I mainly hunt these days), with the one exception of a spike whitetail I shot in a forested, fairly high altitude. Think steep country with lots of valleys, timber, and some meadows down low. The elk from this area eat fine, but that whitetail was horrible. It was a young deer, I shot it with my bow and hit it good, down within 60 yards. Gut it right away. It was a few hours before I could skin it though, perhaps @cantexian is correct about not getting the hide off within a couple hours. That little spike was that stinky, terrible type of gamey. Had to cook it outside on the BBQ and drown it in BBQ sauce to eat the darn thing. The other whitetails, I have really only ever noticed a fairly distinct difference in one of them. It was plumb full of garbonzo beans, I rifle shot it quartering to and thus saw the stomach contents when gutting. That was the best eating whitetail I've ever had, very mild and just really good eating.
