Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game How does an animals diet, influence its taste?

Ya'll need to figure out how to feed your deer lichen and moss so they'll taste like caribou.

That stuff is in a league of its own. By far the best meat I've ever tasted.....

Big difference in the flavor of our blacktail out here in CA. The lowland deer that feed primarily on acorns and leafy plants year long have an almost beef like quality and are very mild. The high mountain deer and bush/shrub feeders have a stronger and gamier flavor. I like both, but the Mrs likes the lowlanders.

The deer that chow done on sugar beets,apples,carrots and shelled corn taste great!

Corn fed whitetails are way, way better than the mountain whitetails we have where I hunt.
Ken

Deer are natural browsers, eating all kinds of brush. Try chewing on a different kinds of twigs. Some taste really bad. Here in the west, bitterbrush is a major winter feed. It's high in oils and calories and makes great feed. But, it comes by it's name honestly. I don't think anyone can bite into a seed more than once. The taste will blow your head off.

Several years back, 01 or 02 I think, we had a fairly dry year until fall. Then we got some good rains and all over was a crop of wild onions. They were everywhere and about the only green stuff around for several weeks.

Every hog shot was pre-seasoned. The meat tasted like you had sprinkled onion powder on it.

Pork fat is non-saturated. It absorbs tastes even more than beef or deer fat. Try eating pork that's been fattened on fish meal. They use it a lot but have to take them off of it a month before slaughter or the meat tastes terrible.

I grew up eating corn-fed whitetails, later had some high-mountain mule deer, and wyoming pronghorn, all of which were good.

November-killed Kodiak blacktail deer beat them all, hands down..... At least the meat from that one individual animal given me did...

When spruce grouse begin feeding on their winter diet of spruce needles, their meat turns darker and sprucy-flavored.

grain fed grass fed beaf. How do you tend your garden?

I love deer that live near Alfalfa fields. Sage can make them a little strong for some peoples tastes, but not mine.

Ducks that feed here on Lake Earl are some of the worst tasting ducks I have eaten.

I have no idea why.

I have talked to guys that shot black bears close to garbage
dumps in PA and they find all kinds of stuff inside the stomaches of the bears.

Yeah, bears can be like four legged land sharks. Much like BradArnett I have done much of my hunting in Northern Michigan (Upper Peninsula) and you can tell the difference between a swamp buck that's been chewing on cedar and alder vs one that has been eating alfalfa and potatoes in Dickinson Co.