RE: How long to soak deer
If you have a gamey taste, its not from blood in the meat or lack of aging.
More apt to be from attempts at aging, bad field dressing, rutting buck, not cooling fast enough.
Put 2 properly prepared deer steaks in front of someone - one "aged" and the other dressed,skinned, cut and froze in 24 hours.
Most will pick the 2nd.
Steve