Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Deer meat smells like rut

Blacktailer,

You didn't get lucky in our experience. My wife and I have killed a bunch of pronghorns over the years, in four states from New Mexico to Montana, including bucks in the rut and after the rut. The only one that didn't taste great was a buck I shot in Wyoming, while hunting with a couple of friends.

One of the ranch workers volunteered to take it back to the ranch headquarters and hang it up to cool in the shade, so I could stay with my friends. It turned out later that he did not go directly back to the ranch, due to having to make a drug deal--and it was a warm, sunny day, with my buck in the rear of his Jeep Wagoneer. That buck was almost inedible, though we eventually found ways to use the meat. (Eileen has been dealing with a wide variety of big game for a long time.) Antelope are probably the big game animals most easily ruined by poor field care.

One other possibility, however, is that a few people may have taste buds that react weirdly to something in pronghorn meat, somewhat the people to whom cilantro tastes like soap. I say this because of knowing maybe 3 people that thought antelope everybody else really liked was awful. One of them even said it tasted like dog food--though I dunno how he knows that!