Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Killed a healthy looking deer not fit to eat

Drew a mule deer doe permit which is meat insurance to let me hold out for bigger antlers. Called in a dry lone doe, watched for a fawn for four minutes and dropped her on the spot at 30 yards with a high shoulder shot over brush. She looked healthy and acted normal. She was gutted there, dragged to a road in a foot of snow, hung right there to skin clean and cool out overnight in 33 degree weather.

She had long scratches healed or almost healed down at least one hind leg, the longest one from mid ham to hoof. They were 1/8 inch wide strips of hair cut or scraped off down to the bare skin, not deep. I wish that I had examined them more, parallel scratches about ¾ inch apart, either 3 or 4 of them on one leg. It was amid a snow squall blizzard.

When skinning I found two patches of bright yellow fluid side by side about a hand width each, on her chest/brisket. Clear liquid, no cyst, and no swelling that I noticed. Fat, very large body for a doe. The fat looked unusually grey but turned white when it cooled and hardened.

I phoned a game biologist who ID'd the yellow as a seroma, (sort of a specialized bruise rather than infection) and totally safe for humans to eat. He said that the meat immediately around the yellow should be cut off as it would taste bad. He was pretty sure the scratches were from a wolf though I had guessed cat. He said wolves sometimes scratch like that and that the location on hind leg indicated wolf.

I cut some primo chops from the outer strap, pan fried with bacon-- and they did not taste good. Hmmm... Decided to make hamburger out of all. Tried again after one more day in the cooler and this time it flat out tasted bad and left a taste in my mouth for hours. I don't want hamburger that tastes bad. It would do for the seige of Leningrad but I'm not that hungry. Will throw it out. Doggone.

Dog food?

Wish I had a dog!

Would be interesting to see if a dog would eat it. FWIW, on a ranch where I used to live, coyotes would not touch dead cows that had been treated by a vet and injected with whatever the vet used (antibiotics?) but would devour a whole dead cow in 3 days if she had not been treated/injected.

Killed a good whitetail some years ago. He had been worked over by a bigger buck. He had holes poked in him all over. Some were infected. I didn’t clean him.

Killed a bull elk in archery season that had a three sided hole in his front leg. Hit the leg bone and fell out apparently. Lost that whole quarter it was all shriveled up.

Years ago my BIL and I shot 2 does out of a herd in an early winter hunt. They were in a foot of snow. We cleaned and skinned them quickly so the meat cooled fast. Neither was fit to eat. They had a horrible taste and cooking it smelled up the entire kitchen. I have no idea what they'd been eating but it sure flavored the meat. Even my dog wouldn't eat it. We had to toss it all.

Sorry to hear this guys. I've never had a bad one yet. Some old deer a little tough, but never any foul taste.

I once shot a big fawn for some tender meat. Instant dead and cleaned properly. Could not cook it in the house it was so rank. I had a 120 pound German Shepard that did not even taste it. Who knows why? Ed k

First 10 pt I shot I took to the processor. He called and said the deer had lost a hind foot and had a major puncture wound on the other hindquarter. The result was that the entire thing was rotten. Might explain why he was walking out in the open in a hay field on a day in the 80's. He was heading towards a pond when I took him.
When cleaning him, we did notice a rather rank smell and just though some shrapnel had nicked the stomach.