Good Whitetail is my favorite. It is our primary meat. We have deer meat in some form four to five days a week.
Two factors that produce noticeably better tasting meat are taking the animal early in the fall, when their fat reserves are up and shots to the brain stem or thoracic spine between the shoulder blades so there is instant death.
Someone opined the taste difference was due to the hormone dump on a death run. I don’t know why, but the results are noticeable comparing deer of same age, sex, size, and same area of browse.
So table meat cuts are shot as early in the season as possible. Late season goes to the grinder mixed 60:40 deer to pork to add fat to it.
I have shot Axis four times and never been very happy with it. Might have been the particular area, but it was not good to me.
Blackbuck is excellent.
Elk is good, mule deer not so much, rattlesnake is ok, but a real pain to eat with all of the bones. After hunting in south Louisiana, first hand taste tests give the prize for absolute worst meat to Nutria, Coons, and Possums. Never again will those go on my plate unless it is the end of the world scenario. Wild turkey and ducks are edible, but so so. Goose makes wonderful gumbo.
The big green swamp frogs are fantastic when well prepared.
