Night Crawler

My N.C. deer are pretty dang tasty. my opinion is, a swamp deer that only survives on natural browse is the worst. the deer on my farm get soy beans, cotton, plenty of oaks, and I help them out in the winter with oats, and other food plot type deals. Farm deer rule.

and yes deer eat cotton, they will pick through the cotton bloom and eat the seed.

dmax4me

Illinois for sure. I'm from PA and when I brought home some Roasts from several deer I got in IL my family thought they we eating beef.

doetrain

My Indiana corn,bean and wheat fed Buck was truly delicious from last season. I'm sure he ate plenty of acorns as well and I was sure hoping being in the rut that he would not taste to gamey. I think the fack that he was a young buck helped the tenderness as well. If I get a larger buck and or nice doe this year I hope they taste as good as he did. No matter how we fixed it it was always good eats! My vote for best tasting deer is Indiana.

BarnesX.308

How much corn does a supposed "corn-fed" deer eat? Between the time the corn is mature and when it is combined, what do they have? 2-3 months? And the other 10 months they're eating mast and browse.

I'd say it has to do more with how it's killed and how it's handled after the kill. The best deer are the ones that have bled out the most. Blood in the flesh will taint the meat and give it a gamey taste.

okgobbler

Areas that grow corn, generally grow wheat (Sept.-June), Alfalfa (April-Sept.), and then corn, beans, milo in the late summer and fall. So the deer have a steady food supply year round. In my opinion, corn gets the credit for big, healthy, tasty deer, but the other ag crops also play a vital role.

My dates for the above mentioned crops will vary from year to year and by geographic location, but you get the picture.

BillBrasky

Glad to see all the responses. I think Country1 and Barnes raise a good point that the care of the carcass will make just as much of a difference in flavor as the diet of the animal. Also, skb2076 raises a good point that it is kind of hard to generalize the taste of a deer by state--the habitat differences between eastern and western Kansas alone are enough to make a difference in their diet and flavor.

And with all the talk I have heard about food sources, I haven't heard much in the way of water sources. Do you think a deer taken along the muddy mississippi would taste any differently than one who's home range was near a spring-fed lake?

Patrick Eubanks

Wait a minute, were supposed to eat these things?

salukipv1

I've yet to taste a better steak than in Chicago...

perhaps new york has a tasty steak, I wouldn't know.

as for bbq etc...who knows where.

kinda makes me laugh, in the middle of a huge city you get the best tasting steak around, go in the middle of cow country and you're like, what is this? pffft.

I've just learned to lower my standards when eating outside of chicagoland...

good food in other areas is mediocre at best around here...same goes for being raised in a household of a good cook.

fishtaconc

Yeah those swamp donkeys can be kinda harsh, grain/farm fed are the best in my opinion no matter which state, as some one stated care after the kill is key as well.