NVMIKE

The rut makes some difference, smell the glands on the bucks legs and youll know why handling of the animal is MOST important during the rut. If you get some of that stuff on your meat. WOWZAA, nasty, gamey meat. The main thing that affects taste is diet, so corn fed deer will taste best. Look at how beef and pork are prepared for butcher, they are taken off the range and "fed out" with grains and corn to improve the taste. I once shot an antelope in his bed sleeping, head shot, never woke up or even twitched. NASTIEST meat I EVER TRIED to eat. A few weeks later, a buddy shoots at and scares off a herd of antelope on his ranch. We jump in his p/u and race to the other end of his alfalfa pivots (@7miles) he climbs on the haystack and waits, pretty soon here comes the same batch of goats troting in, he drops two does, and signs the carcass tags over to me. So here I sit w/ two antelope that just got spooked, ran @ 7 miles. Antelope are notorious for being gamey, I'm thinking ALL jerky, but to my surprise, it was as good as any whitetail I've ever had. The difference, these were eating alfalfa.