Dennis,
Are the Arizona mule deer in the rut? What are they eating?
Have hunted both Coues and mule deer in Sonora, where they tend to occupy very different kinds of habitat. Despite that, the meat of both was excellent. But the hunts were early in the rut, when bucks of both species were far from worn down.
I think the mule deer rut much harder than the whitetails. I was hunting a few years ago and had a 190" muley 'challenge' me repeatedly. I never even nocked an arrow. Our coues deer are still a little more timid during the rut and I think they eat more. The last 'trophy' mule deer I killed was in '97 and it was so rank that the dog would not even eat the meat. That was the final straw. I had two sets of hunters give me meat sticks made from mule deer. The package was labeled 'Broadus MT' so I am assuming they killed the bucks in Montana. The sticks were so gamey that I had a running joke with my dog. I would ask her if she wanted some mule deer. She knew exactly what that meant; going to the fridge to get a meat stick as a treat as I couldn't stand the smell of them.
I think they are eating a lot of cliffrose and other aromatic browse in Dec/January.
The coues deer we killed in Mexico last year were delicious. We were only able to sneak a small amount of meat home but it was great. I know quite a few hard-core coues deer hunters like me that will no longer hunt mule deer. To me they smell worse than a rutting bull elk and that is saying something.
I ate a LOT of game meat last year and in order from best to worst, I would rank it as follows:
1) Dall sheep
2)Eland
3) Moose
3)Sitka blacktail
4)Gembok & Impala
5)Virginia whitetail
6)Coues whitetail
7)Kudu
8) everything else with Mule deer and warthog being at the bottom of the list.
