The reason I ask this ......about 8 years ago, my brother shot a 200# 130" buck through the lungs ... the diaphram was not touched ... when we gutted it, the thing had a bad smell ...... the meat was nasty as well ... that was the only time I have ever tasted funky venison ... but I have only ate what I or my family have killed ... one other note, my dad killed a 200# rutting buck that tasted great ... he was aged at 4 1/2 ... if you say they don't, help me figure out what happened with my brother's deer.......
It's been said about mature deer, not just bucks IMO when someone states they shoot _____ because ______ It's just an excuse and THEY are having issues with what they shoot, not me, I don't care:p
Bryan ...we thought about disease or infection ,.... he ended choking most of it down .. but I just ate my own deer :D Gary .. I have eaten old does and rutting bucks and 6 month olds ...and they all tasted pretty much the same ..... until this guy ....
I know, I am not talking about you, I just feel kind of like a prick today. That statement just irks me. BTW gramps wants me to shoot him a fawn this year, because they taste better
One of the guys at our buck camp shot a buck one year that had a huge bulge around its testicles. When gutting the buck he cut into it and it was filled with puss and gave off a putrid smell. Since it only seemed to be a surface infection he cut around the area and kept most of the deer. The jerky I tried from that deer did have a funny taste and I only ate a little bit of it. I would guess infection of some sort. I might think disease, but you said the deer was 200# and I would think if it was sick it would have lost weight.
The buck I shot last year tastes different than the does/fawns/young buck that Kendall and I put in the freezer. (one doe was at least 5.5 years old) The buck's meat is stinky when it's cooking and it's faintly 'gamey' when eaten. I don't really know why. I've eaten plenty of venison from rutting bucks that was fine. However the very gameist venison I ever had was from a button buck that had been hit by a car but was just maimed and needed to be shot by the police about 45 minutes after being struck. His meat tasted like a tarsal gland smells. All of it... and I processed the meat myself so I know it wasn't screwed up. (his back was broken no tarsal contamination) I'm kind of leaning toward the idea that venison may be gamier if the animal was stressed before being killed. I'm pretty sure the buck I shot last year had just been fighting and he was still panting a bit when I shot him. Then again, I put a doe in the freezer a couple years back that took four or five hours from first shotgun hit to finally being put down and that deer tasted fine. So who knows???
Christine, the buck my brother shot was on a dead run with a doe ... it had been shot at and missed jsut before it ran on my poroperty and my brother drilled it ... so there might be some validity to what you said ... thedn again, the other scenario with my dad's buck was the same ... shot at and missed ... ran to my dad and he drilled it ... it tasted fine Also on the road kill .... a few years ago a monster was hit by a car and killed 10 minutes later by a cop... his backstraps were so tough .... I could tell there was gonna be an issue when we cleaned him ... the meat was tight .... no doubt due to stress ... so I agree ...who the freek knows???
The only deer that I can verify tastes "different" is an early season fawn. A guy I know killed a tiny spotted fawn and a big doe the same week, prepared them the same way, etc....the fawn was 10x more tender and DELICIOUS. lol I wouldn't personally have shot it, but I sure ate it without any problems. :D
Definite difference here between fat (and I do mean super fat!) August deer feeding in the high grassy country and rutty November deer that are scraping by on browse, dead grass and whatever kelp they can scrounge up on the beach. It may not be because of the rut but I have noticed that bucks smell and taste more rank than the does at that time of the year. That too may be because of diet since the does tend to have the better feeding grounds but I can't help but feel that the higher stress levels, reduced feeding period and burning of fat reserves associated with the rut influences the flavor of the meat. If there was no difference from one animal to the next within a species why would we consider veal and lamb as such delicacies?
i have only tasted a diff when i eat a certain buddy's deer, always tastes funny to me. i have just racked it up as the way he processes it. im sure some of us would taste bad for whatever reason, but im with the who knows catagorie....
In my experience, how a deer taste depends on how the deer died, what was done after it was dead, how it is stored, and how it is cooked. Maybe some just taste funny, IDK. In the roughly 30 years my family has processed our own deer, I can't remember one tasting funny. That includes deer of all ages, buck and does...from opening day through the last day of the season. I've had plenty of friends' venison that did not taste so good though because of mishandling the process from the time the deer died. Very common, IMO.
I agree with what Christine mentioned. The two worst deer I have ever eaten were both does, both had been shot at, had been running and when I shot them bolted and died in a heap. I tend to subscribe to the idea that all the adrenaline in the system makes them taste a little funky. Jerky and burger it is!
Exactly! It depends on where you shot them and how well they were field dressed and cleaned. Usually the "gamey" taste is related to gut shots or stomach contents being spilled in the body cavity.
not in the case of my Brother's deer. Greg ... I agree it is vitaly important that the care of the deer is right ... but it was shot thru the lungs and dressed and butchered right..
In the beef industry there are occasionally 'dark cutters'. The meat is dark and has a different ph and flavor. So you could take in a herd of well cared for black angus steers that have been fed the same, same genetic line, same care before slaughter and still end up with a funky tasting one. (tho' it could be that a particular steer would stress out at a different level than it's herd mates and that might be the underlying issue.) Just thinking out loud.
