I never shoot bucks for the table. That takes care of all the gamey taste I have ever seen. Grain feed deer do taste better than just forest fed deer. This after taking quite a few of both. When and if I do shoot an older buck I give the meat away. Every time. I give it to friends who are going to grind it up and mix a bunch of salt and seasoning in it.

I butcher my own deer and never have a problem with gamey taste.

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.

Almost forgot, when you process your animal, DONT break into or cut any bone, the marrow will REALLY make the meat gamey. If your haveing it done professionally, specify that you dont want any bone cuts, all boned out. Also clean the fat, tendon, and membranes off before you cook it. Game fat will really ruin flavor.

I had a guest at my home that i invited over and he new i was cooking venison meatloaf, he looked over at me and said i dont know why people try to take the taste out of a deer, i eat deer becuase i like the taste of it. I was impressed, and ever since then i just ate it becuase i too like the taste of a deer. Also remove all silver skin from your deer if u do it yourself

I have couple people(niece and son) who said, I don't like Venison - Its Gamey..etc..etc..bla..bla . I fooled them both with Venison Spagetti and Venison Stew. Neither had a frikkin clue until I told them some hours later after they had digested and were nice and relaxed.

AJ, Gotta love it!! I feel it depends on how its cooked to be honest. I have always cooked mine the same way I cook Beef and even fooled my mother! She is now hooked and always wants to know when I am fixing a Venison roast, Barbeque, or Meatloaf. LOL Go figure.

And this is my mom with a major "Bambi complex" that swore to never eat deer meat. lol Not sure but all of my does/bucks are taken with one shot and drop where they stand. I have heard that this makes a huge difference in meat taste???

soak in pineaplle juice, carribean jerk marinade with pineaplle juice is great!!!! Soak and grill

My chinese mother in law is visiting us and I gave her some venison just to see what she would do with it. She sliced it thin, marinated it in soya sauce, sesame oil and corn starch. Then stir fried with vegetables. Best chinese food I've ever had and extremely tender.

Here is my take, venison does take up the flavor of their food, my deer almost always have been eating my apples and I can taste and smell apple flavor in the meat. I can also smell a stinky swamp deer and won’t eat them. I do not like strong tasting venison and some not all older deer can be stronger tasting. If you don’t like “gamey”, strong venison taste shoot young ones bourn this year, they are very very mild tasting. Oh by the way got a 3 or 4 year old 8 point 20 inch spread last night while he was eating apples off the tree. Slice and dice today after work.