Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Rutting Bucks as Table Fare

What's your opinion? Some say they'd rather eat doe meat than meat from a rutted up buck.

Can't eat a rutted up blacktail.

Each one can be different.

Gut em asap, hang em, get the hide off, hope gets cool. I don't mind a little rain on em myself.

Never had an issue w any deer that I or my pards have killed.

Toughest deer I have killed was a 100# doe. Even beat out loin sammiches were tough. Ground that whole deer the next day.

You have to wonder how many of these rutted up bucks got hauled all over in the back of a truck, taken to the processor 12 hours after being killed, stacked up like cord wood for a few hours if not days before skinned or hung.

Seen em stacked up on 50° days. No thanks.


My deer hung for 8 days a few weeks back. The day I worked him up you could hardly smell the meat. No odor at all.

Our rifle season is during the rut so most bucks we kill are chasing the ladies. I’ve never ever had a deer from around here that was anything but great eating, from 50lb yearlings to old toothless Roman nosed bucks.

Nonsense.

I’ve never had an issue with a rutted up elk, mule deer or whatever else from both a taste and tenderness standpoint assuming it was taken care of once killed.

Toughest critter I ever ate was a calf elk that I felt was taken care of properly but it was like shoe leather.

Any Mule deer buck that is rutting can be an issue imo.
A rutting buck can taste poorly because the fat has run through the meat, often I have shot a huge buck that has zero fat...meaning it has run through the meat, makes your eyes water when you eat it. I try to shoot my Mule deer early for that reason, Whitetails don't seem to be near as bad.

I prefer a small Mule deer buck to any kind of game animal, it is consistently good and never had a poor tasting Mule deer when taken early.

This year we got a cranker buck early in the rut, it still had 2" of fat on its back and tastes great, no stink.
I have shot them at times, usually later in the rut, Nov 15-30,, and they still make poor table fare no matter what.

Most of the deer I shoot are during the rut and they are delicious

I'm surprised by the comments.

I'm not.

Eaten more than my share, and they’ve all been somewhere between great and fanfuggintastic.

It can be a toss up for me. Once in awhile I can get a bad one. I have one right now that is going to be a rough one to eat. The other ones this year will be fine.

^Taste or tough? I’ve had a couple tough ones, but never one that tasted poorly.

Your timing is similar to mine. They run hard first part of the month, mostly at night. Breed about the 15th-20th. That’s when you can get a bad one.

Pre rut with fat is fine. Seems like I get the stinky ones in areas of high buck abundance. They seem to be running harder? Not sure what makes that occasional mature buck taste awful. Post rut is awesome eating.

Taste and smell. Drives my wife nuts.

Lots of guys around here try to have meat chores done by Nov 5th. Anything after that can be a gamble for mature bucks.

I work hard to get my buck as early s possible.

Agree, around the 20th of Nov is what I find too.

They taste like shyte because they don't eat, run all over, and the fat runs through the meat, I have found even the does aren't so great. I don't remember ever getting a Mule deer at any time that was tough.

Have shot my share of rutting muleys, and they have ranged from just OK to gotta-gag-em-down as table fare. Can’t ever recall one that ate “great.” Certainly, I am of the opinion that being in the rut does the meat no favors.

Big muley bucks still give me the shakes (thankfully), and I love to hunt them, but at the table I prefer whitetail, all things being equal. That goes double for the rut.

Love em.........with 20% fat and run thru a grinder.

I too have had some bad ones, I'm just talking taste, not toughness. I can deal with toughness, it's the taste issue.

I've only had one that was impossible to eat, not in hamburger, not anyway. If there is fat on them, they tend to be ok, but when they are as slick as a gun barrel, is when there seems to be problems.