Gamey taste.

[Deertick]

Do you think a mule deer feeding on sage will taste the same as one feeding on apples?

Do you think a mule deer who is shot, and falls dead on the spot will taste the same as one who runs for 2 miles, and is shot at again during those 2 miles?

Do you think a mule deer will taste the same during the rut in Nov, as one in Aug before hunting seasons start?

And the answer to all of these is \"Yes\". I do not think there is any evidence that apples or any other macro-nutrient influences meat taste (except the exception above, fish oil, which really changes metabolism) above and beyond simply the amount of calories. The only thing I really could say about nutrition and flavor is that I believe that animals eating higher amounts of simpler carbohydrates (corn) will have more marbling, and therefore taste better. But animals in the wild can do that, too. (Your berry-eating bear, for example, is fed on simple sugars).

The trouble with other correlations is this: bias. We humans don\'t realize that we are so influenced, but we are. We see what we expect to see, and we don\'t see what we expect not to see. The same is true with taste, smell, etc.

The worst whitetail I ever shot was a corn-fed button buck shot in January in the snow, and dead in <5 seconds. One of the best was a rutting 170-class buck that was hit 5 times with muzzleloader shots as it traveled over a mile. I\'ve had the unfortunate chance to eat quite a few animals shot poorly and recovered quite some distance from their original position, and I can\'t say I notice anything different about them. (But had I been biased to believe that there was a difference, I too would taste something \"bad\" with them. But that\'s psychology, and I don\'t think it\'d hold up to a blinded test.)

When we experience bad meat, we can\'t resist the urge to associate that with SOMETHING. So, we find a correlation. Maybe it was gut-shot, or maybe it was a time-of-year thing. That\'s not much more scientific than the old Monty Python \"She\'s a witch!\" scene in Holy Grail.

Personally, I suspect a porcupine shot near the dump and one shot in the woods and even one fed Cheerios for a month taste the same: bad. Kobe beef tastes good because they are over-fed with carbohydrates (which leads to marbling) and have restricted movement.

 

[Deertick]

Edit above: apples are simpler carbohydrates than sage, so I suppose they would add to marbling a bit more. But they don\'t impart a special \"apple\" taste.

 

[OldMan]

I\'m not arguing. I just want to get it straight. I\'m very anal about meat care. It\'s pretty much why I don\'t like to hunt during the ML season in mid Sept. I like the cooler weather of the rifle seasons. I\'ll deal with all the hunters during rifle seasons to have the cooler weather. I mention this, because I want you to know how important it is for me to keep the meat fresh.

So, with that said. What do you think the reasons are that some game meat taste bad even through it was taken care of the same as the meat that taste good? It just seems the if I ever got a deer that wasn\'t good that it was one in the rut, or close to it. We can\'t really hunt deer here during the rut on normal seasons. Elk always taste good to me, so no complaints there, but I try to not shoot the real old ones. Not even sure that matters now?

Also, let me touch back on the bear again. The fish is a good explanation. What about dump bears? They can be pretty bad too.

 

[Lark Bunting]

You guys have me worried...the one and only deer I\'ve ever killed last year was absolutely fantastic. It was a muley doe and I\'m thinking she had nursed that spring as when I was cutting through the utter (or whatever it\'s called on a deer) there was a ton of milk. Also, there was a lot of sage in the area.

I remember telling Atfrith that I was bringing some deer steaks when we elk hunted the last weekend of the season. We grilled them up with only salt and pepper and he complimented the meat. Turns out that he was not too thrilled about me bringing deer steaks...until he tried it. :lol:

It took us a couple hours to track my deer, gutless method and a quick hike back to camp. I immediately put her in my big cooler with 6 frozen jugs of water. I let that sit over night and we processed it the next morning. I changed plastic table cloths every hour, washed the cutting boards and knives about every hour and immediately put the packaged meat into the freezer. :dk:

I don\'t know what I did right in there but that meat was absolutely fantastic! We enjoyed steaks, roasts jerky and it was all amazing.

:thewave:

 

[atfrith]

I\'m at a loss for what causes the difference in taste between animals. As mentioned above, Lark\'s deer was absolutely amazing, and I guess what made it amazing to me was how tender it was. My doe that was shot during 2nd rifle last year, died quickly, 30 yards or so, gutless method, on ice within an hour of death, processed very closely to how Lark said he did his, and she is a pretty tough animal. Up until now I was thinking I goofed up by processing her so quickly, into the freezer by the next day (and I still think I did, will cooler age this year), but sounds like Lark did the same, and his doe was great. Oh, and mind also had milk on board during the gutting process.

Anyways, I guess what I\'ve deducted is that every animal is just going to be different. All we can do is our own due diligence to make sure the meat is handled properly and the rest there just doesn\'t seem to be much we can do about. :dk:

 

[cohunter14]

When we experience bad meat, we can\'t resist the urge to associate that with SOMETHING. So, we find a correlation. Maybe it was gut-shot, or maybe it was a time-of-year thing. That\'s not much more scientific than the old Monty Python \"She\'s a witch!\" scene in Holy Grail.

John, a lot of what you are saying makes sense to me. However, I do have to disagree a little bit with the sage deal again, and it is just based on experience with antelope.

Quite a few years ago, we were in the same camp as many that thought antelope was just not very good. You could taste the sage-iness in the meat. We actually stopped hunting them for quite a few years because of that. The only reason we got back into it is I had a buddy invite me out to hunt with him. That antelope was so good that I would put it up against any elk that I have ever tasted. Every other one from that area has been the same. So, to me, there has to be some association to that, especially when you could taste that sage flavor in the meat from our old area. When everything else is the same (handling of the meat, etc) it is easy to make the correlation. Call me crazy, but it was a noticeable difference.

 

[Deertick]

but it was a noticeable difference.

Well, I\'m not denying that you noticed a difference. You ascribed the difference to sage. I\'m not sure why. Was that the ONLY difference? Even if it was, was it a cause, or just a correlation?

I\'ve hunted on the same place now for several years. 2013 we shot, I think, 5 antelope. They were noticeably bad -- every one of them. 2014 we shot 6 more. They\'ve all been good, including the one hit but recovered over a mile from it\'s source, and the one with the infected leg (her humerus was eaten-away with osteomyelitis and she was limping. Brad was there -- remember, Brad?)

The difference? Well, I\'ll just be honest and say I don\'t know (which is what we should all say) but I will say that they came out of the same ranch, and were all on sage and grass, so that can\'t be it. I personally would note that 2014 was a record year for rain, and the pasture was in better shape than the rancher had ever seen it. That might have something to do with it, and it would go along with my theory that it\'s simple carbs that lead to fat animals that taste good.

-----
I used to \"hunt\" bison on a 15,000 acre ranch. My family and extended family all enjoyed the meat. The ranch owner said that there was a noticeable difference in time of year. August bison were always prime. Why? Well, that is when the grass has the most carbohydrates, he said. They were fat, and they lost fat after than until next summer.

I think that\'s the reason for \"rut\" to be a bad tasting meat. It\'s not hormones. (Really, has anyone tasted testosterone and would they like to tell us what it tastes like?) I believe that during the rut, males use a lot of fat stores up. Which stores do they use? They preferentially use VISCERAL fat. They have to keep the subcutaneous fat for winter protection from cold. But they use up the fat in their guts, and the fat that is deposited around blood vessels and in muscle (marbling).

Thus, they taste bad.

But any other high-calorie-demand state could do that, too. Illness, migration, stress from low amounts of browse. That\'s the reverse of my theory that lots of visceral fat makes animals tastes good, so I take that as corroborating evidence. And so I want to shoot animals that are grazing belly-deep in morning-time green grass in relatively warm weather (high-country elk, for instance).

It might also explain why some people find sage-eaters to taste bad. They shoot a sage-eater in a relatively dry year, and the animals couldn\'t put on a lot of visceral fat. The next year, they shoot one off of irrigated grass. Is there a difference? Sure!

So, like StillHunter, I\'m not arguing ... In a sense, I\'m agreeing, but I want to know the \"why\". And I think it has more to do with summer feed and stress than anything.

The theory that animals taste like what they consume, to me, is silly. You can\'t tell me of a mechanism of how you can season a meat by feeding it the seasoning. It\'s all broken-down as soon as it hits the gut.

 

[Deertick]

Here\'s a marketing ploy on the same theme:

Grass-fed beef.

Grass is a slightly more complex sugar than corn, so it takes longer to break down and burn for energy. This leads to less visceral fat, and leaner beef. It\'s not the grass or the corn that makes the difference, it\'s where the cow puts the fat (under the skin, or wrapped around blood vessels and marbled into the meat.)

If you want to \"finish\" a feeder cow, what do you do? You feed it the simplest sugars you can find. Why? It leads to marbling. So you use corn, molasses, or cane sugar. It doesn\'t change the sweetness, it changes the marbling.

 

[cohunter14]

It might also explain why some people find sage-eaters to taste bad. They shoot a sage-eater in a relatively dry year, and the animals couldn\'t put on a lot of visceral fat. The next year, they shoot one off of irrigated grass. Is there a difference? Sure!

So, like StillHunter, I\'m not arguing ... In a sense, I\'m agreeing, but I want to know the \"why\". And I think it has more to do with summer feed and stress than anything.

The theory that animals taste like what they consume, to me, is silly. You can\'t tell me of a mechanism of how you can season a meat by feeding it the seasoning. It\'s all broken-down as soon as it hits the gut.

John, I am just like you in that I am no tying to argue, only state my results and try to figure out the \"why\". I think you have hit the nail on the head though that it DOES matter what the animals eat and the quality of forage they have. Those antelope that didn\'t taste good in 2013? I am guessing that it had to do with how dry it was. Maybe they were eating sage instead of grass?

As far as the \'taste\' of sage, all I can do is guess that it is something weird going on. Maybe the meat just has the smell of it and that is what makes it taste that way? I wish I had some laying around right now to do an experiment. How does that happen though? I don\'t know, but maybe it can be related to asparagus and why that makes a person\'s urine stink. I have to imagine that if a person fed on a bunch of asparagus and then they were cut open, they would probably stink...?

 

[Deertick]

Those antelope that didn\'t taste good in 2013? I am guessing that it had to do with how dry it was. Maybe they were eating sage instead of grass?

I think this is the biggest contributor. There was simply more grass in 2014. I\'ve been told, though, that pronghorn prefer to browse rather than graze, even in good years. Perhaps even the sage was in better shape in 2014.

Sage is a browse, and as such, it\'s difficult to break down. I theorize that grass is just better at making visceral fat, and sage is worse -- but in good years, it probably doesn\'t matter.

I just can\'t wrap my head around seasoning meat by feeding it the seasoning. Otherwise, we\'d feed cattle salt and pepper.

Pronghorn certainly have their own odor, and it\'s from the oils in the hair. Getting that on meat isn\'t the meat\'s fault. Maybe that has something to do with why some folks don\'t like them.

 

[cohunter14]

I agree with you that it\'s odd, but I know I am not the only person who has tasted a sagey animal either. And I can assure you that it wasn\'t from improper handling of meat and getting hair all over it. We are very cautious with meat care.

Either way, we now hunt where there really is no browse for the antelope to eat...just grass. That seems to take care of the negative taste, at least for us.

 

[elky McElkerson]

never eaten or killed a pronghorn. (someday!!)

sage? this is similar tasting to the sage (the herb) we put in our beef dishes?

 

[Jaquomo]

A couple things on pronghorn handling:

They are a unique creature unrelated to anything else in the world. Their hair carries a unique bacteria that can spread quickly on the meat surface. If loose hair remains on the outside of the carcass for any length of time, it will taint the flavor quickly. I skin mine as fast as possible and get them hosed off. My camp trailer has an outside sprayer I use if nothing else is available. I meticulously pick off any remaining loose hairs and wine down the outside of the carcass with vinegar to inhibit any bacteria growth.

The horns are made from hair. They continuously rub their horns in sage. If you hold the horns and admire them and then handle the meat before washing your hands, you can transfer that sage and bacteria to the meat as well. Next time you shoot one, smell the horns.