Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Meat Quality: Whitetail vs Mulie

Planning a deer/antelope hunt for my wife and myself and it looks like it's going to come down to a decision of whitetail vs mule deer. Aside from that outfitters look close to the same.

We LOVE venison, but being from NH only get whitetails, wondering about the quality of mule deer meat? If it matters the mule deer hunt would be north central WY. Whitetail would be the Bozeman MT area.

Any thoughts on the difference in the meat, if any?

I've never had whitetail. The mule deer meat depends some on age and where it's been foraging.

The best eating ever was a young (read, didn't know what that thing between his legs was yet) buck that ate alfalfa every night and drank out of the storm water retention reservoir next to the field every night (the trail going to these was more like an interstate). He tasted like veal, and very tender.

My family has always favored whitetails for eating. That's not to say mulies are bad eating, but a rutting buck from sage country can be a little strong.

I've brought home a lot of mule deer from western states and Canada and have yet to have a bad one.

Among the best was the biggest bodied mule deer I have ever killed,a hog from the Peace River country of Alberta that was killed in early November. Really great.

I hear in the full rut they can be rank,more so than a whitetail, but if on a combo hunt I doubt the OP will bump into that. Most mule deer seasons are earlier and the meat should be fine.

bowhunting mulies I'd take one over any whitetail any day.

I've heard gun hunters say exactly the opposite.

After eating a couple of great nilgai, a friend got a nasty one... the difference was the Juisache had greened out...

I'm betting age and diet are the biggest factors, with diet affecting flavor and age toughness.

I've had plenty of both. I have to say that an Iowa whitetail that has been living on corn, soy beans, and alfalfa taste MUCH better than an old mulie that's been eating sage brush.

It matters a lot more on what they eat than the length of the horns or tails. Whitetails out of hardwood forest can get pretty bad,but corn fed ones in eastern CO are great. Muleys out of sage or oak brush country are not as good as the muleys out in eastern CO where they eat a lot of corn too

Agreed on the comments about what they eat having more effect than species, sex or age. I have killed a 6.5yr old mule deer in the Trans Pecos area about an hour from El Paso. They have some sage in the area, but it's not a dietary staple for the deer there. Delicious - equal or better than any white tail I've eaten.

David

I have had both whitetails and mulies shot in the rut that were horrible.. But our season for mule deer is way before the rut... So almost all of our mule deer have been excellent... I do prefer them over whitetails, but many folks here would much rather have whitetail..

I prefer whitetails hands down for table fare. I've shot several mulies the worst being an old doe.

It depends what they eat, but I like whitetails more myself as well.

I tried eating a Delaware buck once... ONCE !

Swampy acorn nasty dark meat... BLAH

We buy very little beef or such here. Whitetail is the staple. Ill raise a couple hogs too most years. One to butcher and one to sell. Honestly,I'm getting burned out on whitetail meat. For me,the occasional bit of mule deer meat given us by friends,is a treat. I like it. It is definitely different than whitetail. Would I want to live on it? Don't know. I'd sure like to try it.

elk...grin...

I mix my deer meat with beef fat to make 85% hamburger.

I have bought Hamburg for almost 5 years now...

At $6 a lb for burger these days, it's all good.

If forced to pick, for this part of the world, I'd take a whitetail. A young pre-rut muley buck can be darn good though. In the rut, whitetail buck hands down is better eating

I used to buy extra antlerless tags and would give the deer to non-hunters or older people who liked eating deer but could no longer hunt. I've never had any of these people say "shoot me a mule deer doe" They always requested a whitetail doe.

I can't tell the difference if they are from similar areas and thus eating similar foods. As a test once, I cooked a backstrap from a muley and a backstrap from a whitetail and served them side by side. No one (of eight diners) could tell the difference...YMMV.

The meat from grain fed whitetails in Iowa/Kansas/Missouri/Nebraska is better than any other wild meat that I've eaten. The best eating deer have been those taken during the late, January, antlerless season when nobody has been chasing them for awhile and they've been eating waste grain.

When we had the ranch near Cottonwood Falls, KS, the deer ate a lot of sage and the meat had a distinct sage smell when cooked and was less marbled than deer that were eating a lot of waste grain.

I'm enjoying two whitetail bucks right now killed this year....both mature and large bodied. One killed in the Maine forest,and that never saw an agricultural field,and another that lived on Kansas forbes, beets, and winter wheat.

Hard to tell which is which and both are delicious.

Hands down, Sitka deer beat whitetails and mulies! Not even close...

I have shot a decent cross section of all of them under all kinds of conditions...

Most whitetails tend to hang closer to ag crops and that gives them a big edge.

I have an invite to take an axis hunt this year. I've heard they are mighty tasty. Any experience here with axis?