Rutting Mule Deer Buck Meat

[ArcherAdam]

My muledeer from last year was better than any whitetail I shot. Colorado 3rd season beginning rut.

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[txhunter581]

Like some people who can and can't smell/ taste certain things, I think it is individual. I don't like mule deer who have been eating sage. The best two deer I have eaten were: 1) Timberline buck in velvet and 2) Rutting buck from eastern Colorado (no sage)

 

[manchild125]

I believe people go wrong in 2 ways and those are gutting the deer and thinking that will cool it fast enough and sending it to a butcher.
Reason 1 is ive gutted deer and quartered deer and the quartered deer cool way faster and taste better in my opinion. Ive only ever killed deer in sage flats or high country and ive never had a sage tasting mule deer (that would be cool though because I like sage)
Reason 2 about the butcher. Alot of "idk if that was the deer I killed" plus most dont really age the meat they just hang, butcher whats in front of you, then get to yours. Not to mention that when a butcher processes something it goes through the same grinder as every other animal and a lot of people DONT REMOVE GLANDS!

I love mule deer and I have had some bad deer from other people's deer that sucks. They always blame it on the deers age but who knows. Elk and moose wins a tie for first every time

 

[manchild125]

also I have only ever shot early season velvet bucks and never a hard horned buck

 

[CaliforniaMuley209]

I love mule deer meat, but we killed a couple big bucks that were FULL rut this year. One had just got done fighting, the other was chasing does with his tongue out. Both swollen up. I gotta say, the meat is pretty damn stinky and rutty. We grinded it and added some fat and it’s edible.

 

[Geewhiz]

I shot a muley buck late in the rut a few years ago and boy was it as raunchy as can be. I have also eaten great muleys but that one,......no way. And this was a mountain buck, no sage. Great shot, died right away, got to it and started processing it right away, snow on the ground made it cool fast. Gutting and quartering it you could just smell the raunch and I could barely handle it. I ended up making jerky out of about half of it and left the other half in my brothers freezer.

 

[ffcpfef]

Our group took 4 mule deer last year during peak rut in Montana and all 4 tasted just fine. We are used to eating whitetails that feed in crop fields in the Midwest and while the mule deer weren’t quite as good as the Midwest whitetails, they still tasted plenty good. I will say the rutted up mulies smelled way worse than any rutted up whitetail I’ve ever taken.

 

[Darryl Dunsloppy]

Mature Mule Deer Buck meat is my favorite of all. I have never had a bad one, don't understand the sagey taste comments either. I get 1-3 roadkill bucks a year during the rut when they are acting real dumb, all fantastic tasting. I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Blacktail22]

I find mule deer in the rut there meat is very gamie Forsure

 

[blacktail sniper]

Id take antelope over mule deer and whitetail. Elk still my favorite just cant seem to seal the deal enough. As far as rutting bucks my dad shot his last year and it was raining and IMHO he let it get too wet in the game bags and didn't dry it out it wasn't tasty. Mine from this year excellent. guess you never know

 

[blacktail sniper]

In 2018 I shot a pre-rut MT mule deer living in the sage country. He had 1.5" of fat on his rump and was in very good condition. Then in December I shot a KS mule deer living in the grass/sage country. He was post-rut and skin and bones, hide almost dragging the ground and no fat at all. Surprisingly both tasted great. Both deer were in pieces within an hour of being shot, both were cooled immediately, and both were meticulously processed for the freezer. I'm starting to believe that the care of the meat matters more than the quality of the meat going in, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.

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