I'm hunting Mule Deer in Colorado next fall, I'm planning to drive so I can bring the meat back. I was told this was a mistake that mule deer isn't worth eating. If thats the case I can fly in much easer.
DR B

I have never had a bad mulie for eating. I have shot them off the desert, out of hay fields, in the high county, and out of sage. Mature bucks, young bucks. All have had good to excellent flavor. All shot before Nov 15.

You could still fly and pay the extra baggage to take a cooler home. Just bone the buck and freeze/cool it. Weigh out 70# and give the rest to a local who will use it. (it is against the law to waste the meat in every mule deer state I have hunted.)

Like any other meat, prep and take care of in the feild. I agree with MC, bone it a cool down fast as possible and enjoy.

Drive, collect the meat, take home, enjoy! That's my MO. With proper care and preparation, muley's are quite tasty.

Dr B,

Shoot, take care of carcass, properly process, BBQ, etc.! Honestly, I like my father in law's corn fed Michigan white tail better than a sage fed mulie, but mule deer meat is great.

Please let whoever told you that know that they are sadly mistaken or they don't know how to take care of meat.

Have a great hunt.

quote:

Originally posted by Dr B:
I was told this was a mistake that mule deer isn't worth eating. DR B

ABSOLUTE BUNK. I've eaten mule deer meat every year when I hunt there with my friend that lives in Cortez. I prefer mulie meat over whitetail.

If you don't salvage the meat you will be in violation of some serious laws. The State of Colorado doesn't play around with that and if you are found to be guilty of wasting game meat, then the fine will run somewhere arounf $7000 or so. It will be even more if the animal is considered a trophy, due to the Samson Law. To even consider going across the country and not salvage the meat is criminal. If all you want is the kill, why call it hunting?

That being said, I was raised on mule deer venison and it is every bvit as good as any whitetail I've ever eaten. Take proper care of the carcass and enjoy the steaks.

You guys havn't had many mule deer if you've never had a nasty one... I've choked down a couple that that would dang near gag a dog. I finally took all the roasts and steaks and had them made into sausage and they still tasted like crap. They were rutted up bucks late in the season though. I've had early season bucks killed sept and oct that were excellent.

The ones that tasted like crap were in taken care of propertly and cooled just fine. Some critters just taste like crap, just the way it is.

My TX mule deer from this past fall didn't taste as good as the whitetail that I'm accustomed to . . . but he was also easily the oldest buck I've ever shot, and in the poorest physical condition. Not to say that it tastes bad, mind, just not as good as mature whitetail or even the ancient toothless buck my wife culled in 2003.

That said, my Dad's two mulie bucks (from this past season and the one prior) were both younger deer and you couldn't tell the difference between one and a whitetail.

There's a lot of perception out there that mulies don't taste good . . . my cousins from CO have said several times that they don't taste good . . . but they swear on elk. Of course, when I've had elk that they cooked, I was unimpressed . . . but its their cookin! A lot of folks here in the Nueces Canyon won't eat a whitetail because Axis is "so much better" but I couldn't tell the difference.

One of my co-workers was an animal science major and daughter of a SoTX rancher - and she swears that there's no point in eating deer and that beef is where its at . . . the deer doesn't taste good because it doesn't have any marbling.

What I've found is that with proper care and an understanding that you can't cook venison as if it were beef (proper marination - not for flavor but to tenderize and moisten the meat) no deer meat tastes "bad" - usually IMHO "bad" venison is either poor cared for or prepared.

Troy

From my limited experience of eating mule deer I have found that if you get a buck during the rut they will taste gamier than one taken before, not that it is bad. The does are a whole lot better tasting than a buck and I like them better than whitetail. When I go to Wyoming I just get does. The rut changes the taste of a deer of what ever species you get. A friend in Alaska calls it going stink when the caribou start the rut.

Rad

I have killed and ate 5-6 mulies for quite a few years, all have been excellent table fare, some were old bucks and even they were good eating.

I have never had a problem with the table fare of mule deer venison.

They definitely have an odor to them which is intensified during the rut. But I have never had it affect the venison.

The best deer venison IMO is from the cornfed whitetails I have shot.

All of the mule deer I have killed have been excellent eating. The early season (pre-rut) deer were better than whitetail in my opinion.

Lou

I was raised on Mule Deer meat, I don't know of any better...Took me years to develope a taste for beef after deer became a commercial venture on our ranch.

Couple of things you can do to make venison better..Bone it out as the saw releases the bone marrow and thats bad stuff...When boned remove all the tissue and fat that is not meat. Cut all you can up into small steaks of 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick..Freeze it....Use the rest for Chili meat or sauage, venison hamburger sucks IMO.

When you thaw it do so in warm water until its grey and soft, then double dip it in egg batter and flour twice and fry it...You will like it.

I like to put a big dollop of Pecko de Gallo (Chili salsa) on it...We eat it with white gravy, biscuits and pinto beans, mashed potatoes..This is what all the ranch families in the Texas Big Bend ate until Deer became a better income than cattle...In cow camp, we dumped the fried meat into the white gravey in that huge iorn skillet and let it simmer a bit, then dutch oven biscuits or flour tortillas, pinto beans, lots of hot chili sauce. oh yeah then came the Peach Cobbler..Damn I'm get'en home sick!
Bon Apetite.

I think a lot of folks go to extremes in field prep...You gut the deer and wash it out, then bone it...If the deer was gut shot then you wash that until its clean...Transporting ruins more etable meat than anything..You can put it on ice or you can hang it where it gets plenty of air like in a trailer. I usually buy about 20 bags of ice and lined the bottom of my Pickup and toss the quartered elk or whatever on it and cover it with a tarp...I have hauled meat for up to 2500 miles this way...Hauled a buffalo from Nebraska to Idaho a couple of years ago..it works. or you can just use a plastic kids backyard swimming pool for smaller animals..

Wild animals are just like domestic stock..The old bulls sometimes don't eat so good and rutting animals should not be shot for food..Not to say a big "fat" Mule Deer buck is bad, if shot in prime condition it is as good as it gets...

Thats why they don't sell old Hereford bulls in your grocery store, there meat goes into cans..A rutting buck should go in a can or Sausage....

Expect no less form wild game than you would from your beef...

the mule deer i hunt are all fed throughout their lives on alfalfa, barley and other grains with occasional sage and of course native grasses. i've never had a bad one and they have all tasted excellent.

as long as the meat is properly cared for there is no reason why it shouldn't be some of the best eating you've ever had!

IMO, Mule Deer on alfafa or grain are less palatable than Mule Deer on native brouse...

My favorite Mule Deer for eating are those that subsist on Sotol and the Patialla fruit, a desert plant in the Southwest Texas, that gives them an exceptional taste..

Deer feeding on Pinons in New Mexico and deer that feed primarily on Sage in the Pacific NW such as Idaho are excellent..

A deers whos body condition is excellent and one that has been feeding on his natural food source make the best table fare IMO...or at least that is the aquired taste I have settled into over the last 73 years..

I'd rank most I've eaten as excellent to good. The best I've had came from Montana, fed on natural grasses and browse above the river basin. I prefer Whitetail but neither compares to Antelope IMHO. LDK

I personally prefer to shoot my mulie's out of my grandfather's CRP fields. As long as you don't let the animal run and heat up, the meat should be fine. After the animal is down, gut and clean as soon as possible. As far as skinning goes, it all comes down to personal preference. Skinning while warm is easier, and if the outside temp is higher, should be done to help the meat cool off. In cooler temps I like to leave the hide on a while, aging the meat for four days to a week before butchering. The steaks from several of the mulies taken in this way have excellent taste and are so tender you can cut them with a fork.

P.S. If taking a doe try for a younger one. If taking a buck I wish you luck on finding the biggest sucker you can find and sticking his tail in the dirt.

quote:

As long as you don't let the animal run and heat up, the meat should be fine

Send me your address, the next rank tasting muley buck I shoot I'll mail to you free of charge.

This one died with grass in his mouth, and had no idea what hit him. He was skinned and cooled out immediately, hung for 2 days and then cut and wrapped by myself. I think dog chit would have tasted better. Lucky for me there was only about 120 pounds of boneless cut and ground meat off it too.



I love how everyone knows the reason why someone else’s meat tastes bad... Some animals taste like crap, just the way it is. Sooner or later you'll find one. I've never purposely or negligently tried to ruin meat off any game I've killed, most is cooled and hung with in an hour or two, none has been run down, drug behind an ATV, rode around in the back of a truck for days, etc... I love to eat wild game, and take every precaution to come up with as much for the freezer as possible... i.e. i'm not one of those type of hunters that tries to ruin the front shoulders just to 'anchor' the animal. I've never had a bad elk, or whitetail, had a few chewy ones with a little extra flavor, but not terrible. I've had a couple nasty mule deer and a couple gamey antelope, but for the most part they are usually really good. I actually prefer antelope to any meat, wild or domestic. The couple times I’ve ended up with foul tasting ones, I'm very disappointed... Its kind of like getting a slice of pie on your plate and then dropping it on the floor.

Ya never know what it will be like till you bite into it.

I killed a small spike bull elk 6-7 years ago that was the toughest piece of meat I’ve ever had… he aged for a week in a walk in cooler too.

What did you shoot that deer with Ivan?

Nice buck and great shot!

X

quote:

Originally posted by Ivan:
You guys havn't had many mule deer if you've never had a nasty one...

Nope I've never had a bad mule deer and I've never had a whitetail at all. But of course all my mule deer are as grain fed as any Iowa buck. Shot my last buck out of a corn and milo fields on the eastern plains of CO, I will not hunt the mountains for deer as long as I have good family farmland to hunt out east. I easily pulled 5-6 pounds of fat off the tenderloins of my deer.

280rem with a 140 Accubond at about 75-80 yards. The bullet was found under the hide in the center of that hole... best I could tell the bullet hit a rib on the way out and had a pretty massive energy 'transfer'. The buck humped up, took two steps and fell over dead.

There was very little bloodshot meat, basically an inch or two around the exit hole.

Mule deer is just fine as long as you take good care of it, as others have said. Skin it as soon as possible, let it chill completely before you cut and wrap, and bone it out. Trim any fat, bloody meat and connective tissues. When you freeze it, try not to freeze the packages in one big pile (ie- stuff them all in a box and put the box in the deep freeze.) A big pile of warm meat will stay unfrozen for days, which can certainly adversely affect the quality of the meat.
My family gets nearly all of its meat from game, mostly white tail, but pleanty of muley elk and antelope as well. I have never really been able to tell the difference between muley and white tail venison.

I've eaten venison from literally hundreds of mule deer. Most of them sage and bitter brush fed from Central and Eastern Oregon. I can't remember a 'bad' one. Some better than others, for sure. But all of them good.

What others have said about field care is spot on. Get it cooled out and the skin off right away. If you can't get it skinned right away (like your in the middle of an extended drive), get it field dressed and the chest cavity opened and hang it in the shade of a tree.

After skinning, I try and get ALL the hair off the meat that I can. This includes washing off the carcass with a clean rag and water, inside and out.

Hang in the shade inside a game bag. I the weather is warm, we let it cool off as much as possible at night, then wrap it in an old sleeping bag during the day.

We do our own butchering. Mostly steaks. The trick there is to remove ALL the fat (tastes terrible) and striffen (outer membrane surrounding the individual muscles.

FWIW,

-Steve

quote:

Originally posted by Steve:
After skinning, I try and get ALL the hair off the meat that I can. This includes washing off the carcass with a clean rag and water, inside and out.

Hang in the shade inside a game bag. I the weather is warm, we let it cool off as much as possible at night, then wrap it in an old sleeping bag during the day.

-Steve

I forgot that I always use a pressure washer to remove any hair. I also like to keep it hung indoors in the shade if possible.

When cooking if you think it might be gamey treat it like you would liver. Soak it in milk before cooking and serve medium avoiding well done at all costs.

Ivan, I'll PM ya my address. I'll take all the meat ya want to send me.

Mulie is the best venison I've ever eaten. That said, I've never eaten one that was taken in an area with a good bit of sage, so I can't comment on the quality of the meat in those areas. The reason I bring up the sage is due to the fact that the antelope I've taken in sage areas tasted horrible IMO.

Good Luck

Reloader

My last mulie, shot in '05, was a 275lb., rut-stinkin B+C buck shot near cut-over grain fields in southern Alberta. He was, like my last mulie before him ( another large bodied, heavy antlered dominant buck), just as tender and tasty as any deer I've ever shot. Proper field care and prompt cooling seems to be the most important factor in producing quality venison.

quote:

280rem with a 140 Accubond at about 75-80 yards.

wow, ivan - i was going to give those a try in the .,280, but after seeing that hole, i don't think i will!

a question about that mule deer - was it taken in the mountains, or during rut? location and hormones have almost as much influence on the taste as does taking care of the carcass and meat. i know you said that he died with grass in his mouth, but what about the other 24 hours of the day? if in the high mountains where grass might be sparse and the deer has to rely on a less-substantial diet, anything is possible. also, for obvious reasons, if he was shot during the rut, that would make a difference.

my personal jury is still out on skinning immediately. i've only skinned immediately a couple of times because i was told that the hide comes off easier. it did come off easier, but a good percentage of the meat dried out while it was aging. (i age 10 days to 2 weeks, but my climate can handle it). nearly all deer i have ever taken have had the hide remain on until it was time to cut up the deer, and a i said i've never had problems with the meat. if someone lives in a warm climate, then of course it is probably necessary, but u in northen montana, it just seems to waste meat. as for aging, if you live in a cool climate or have access to a locker, try aging for 10 days or so. it makes a big difference in tenderness, texture and flavor.

another thing might be in how you are cooking the meat. what methods do you use? i don't think marinades are necessary, but they can be good. my favorite way is simply to season the steaks, then dredge in flour and fry in HOT oil for a couple-three minutes on each side. sometimes i pund the meat with a mallet, but i've never felt it to be a necessary step. another good method is to cut into cubes and make kabobs. lots of good marinades for this method, but once again, i've never felt them to be necessary to "fix" the flavor - they were simply to add other flavors.

also, i have never tried or felt the need to try soaking in saltwater, milk etc., but many people do with reportedly good results.

anyway, not trying to be confrontational, just wondering as your experience is much different than mine and apparently most folks here.