“Gamey” venison is code for mishandled venison. Having cooked and eaten young deer, old deer, mature bucks, rutting bucks, and ancient does, I will die on this hill. Properly handled and processed venison rarely has an objectionable flavor, regardless of the deer’s age, sex or rut status. “Gamey” flavor usually comes from poor processing, tainted meat, bacteria, and spoilage.
I’ve learned from my own mistakes with venison care, and I’ve seen others make them, too. Here are the most common ways I think hunters ruin venison and give it a bad reputation by sharing their poorly handled venison with others – plus how to avoid these mistakes!
Tarsal Taint
The tarsal glands of both bucks and does are hazmat zones. Bucks and does urinate on their hind legs to encourage bacterial growth in the tarsal hairs, so their tarsal glands and lower hind legs are usually scented by urine and bacteria. If you touch these areas and then handle meat with those unwashed hands, you are contaminating the venison.
This can happen so easily in so many ways. You drag your deer out by the hind legs. You skin the hind legs and then continue with the same knife and unwashed hands. You use the dangling lower-leg hide (and attached tarsals) as handles for pulling the hide down as you skin the deer. You leave the skin and tarsals on the lower legs and continue to grab these handles as you process the hindquarters.
Before I hang a deer by the hind legs, my very first step is to skin the lower legs. I cut a ring around the leg just above the hooves and also just above the tarsal glands. Then I skin the section between, sliding my knife blade under the hide along the front of the leg and cutting upward, away from the muscle, to prevent hair from touching meat. I’m also careful not to cut through the tendon by which I hang the deer on a gambrel. I toss the lower-leg hide in the gut bucket so it is out of the work area, change to a fresh pair of disposable gloves (or wash my hands with soap and water), and then change to a fresh knife before proceeding.
Disposable gloves are not only important for avoiding venison contamination, they also protect your health. Small cuts and abrasions on your hands can become infected with bacteria from tarsal glands and other parts of the deer. Wear gloves if possible, and change to a fresh pair often as you work, especially if you cut through them or they break.
Waste Not
The pelvic area is another difficult zone. Whether you are field-dressing a deer on the ground or hanging it first, take care not to rupture the bladder or lower intestine and spill urine, feces and accompanying bacteria. There’s a lot of good meat very close to this area, including the tenderloins and hindquarters.
Make very shallow cuts with your knife to open the abdomen, then cut from the inside out to widen the opening. The bladder could be empty or full. If it’s full, the slightest nick of your knife will empty it all over those tenderloins.
Some people go straight into this area through the groin to begin field-dressing. The problem with this approach is that the only way to separate the lower intestine from the body is to cut through it, and that means spilling its contents. I prefer the approach that my dad taught me. It’s easiest when the deer is hanging, but I’ve done it on the ground in the woods, too. Lift the tail and simply cut a ring around the bung with a sharp knife, then continue cutting into the channel around the intestine – not through it! You are separating the intestine from its channel through the pelvis. Now, when you open the abdomen from the other side, you’ll be able to pull the intestine out intact instead of cutting through it.
Another method from the inside is to cut through the intestine as close to the anus as you can. No matter which approach you prefer to use, take your time so you avoid cutting into venison or spilling urine or feces.
Rumen Aroma
No one forgets the smell of deer rumen contents. It has unusual staying power, both in memory and on your hands. Deer digest their food with the help of bacteria, so no surprise that rumen contents will ruin any venison it touches. You do not want to recall the smell of deer stomach contents when cooking or eating venison, but you will if you mishandle the rumen.
This is trickier than you’d think. To begin with, it’s very easy to nick the rumen with a sharp knife as you are field-dressing the deer. Again, never stick your knife straight through the hide, as you’ll likely rupture something you’ll wish you hadn’t. Make a small initial cut by pinching up the skin. Gradually enlarge it. As soon as it is large enough, insert a couple of fingers into the hole and make a “V.” Use your fingers to push the organs away from the hide as you insert your knife and cut in an outward direction, away from the organs (and your fingers). If you have a knife with a gut hook, this process is even easier. Open the abdominal cavity from the pelvis to the sternum.
Once you’ve cut from the pelvis to sternum, cut through the diaphragm so you can access the chest cavity and get to the heart, lungs, esophagus and trachea. Reach as far up in the chest cavity as you can to grab and sever the esophagus and trachea above the heart and lungs. This helps ensure you can remove all the organs without any leakage of rumen contents. Sometimes there are rumen contents in the esophagus, so be careful when removing it.
Of course, in some cases you may have already ruptured the rumen with less-than-ideal shot placement. Even a lethal lung shot that’s a little far back can rupture the upper part of the digestive tract. Do your best to field-dress the deer while minimizing contact between meat and rumen contents. If you can, hanging a gut-shot deer by the hind legs is best, because most of the meat will be above instead of below the organs. Keep the hide on the deer to cover as much meat as possible until you clean up any rumen contents. Don’t forget to change gloves and wash your knife, or switch to a clean one, before proceeding to cutting meat.
Forbidden Fur
There’s no way to be polite about it, deer skin and hair is dirty. Not to disparage any deer’s hygiene, it’s just a fact that lots of bacteria naturally reside on a deer’s skin and hair – just as they do on mine and yours. The less hair that comes in contact with raw venison, the better.
When skinning a deer, as much as possible cut through skin by running your knife blade under the skin and cutting outward. This keeps most hair attached to the hide and minimizes loose hair drifting around. It also helps avoid cutting into meat with the blade of your skinning knife, which is contaminated with bacteria from the hide.
You’re still going to get some hair on the venison. Pick off stray hairs as you find them. Avoid using water to wash the meat unless there is an excessive amount of hair or dirt that can’t be removed any other way.
Dirty Surfaces
Now that you’ve carefully dressed and skinned the deer to avoid contaminating the meat, don’t waste all that effort by placing quarters or boned-out meat on that nasty camp table that you swept free of mouse turds just yesterday. I’ve seen venison quarters placed on truck tailgates, the bare ground, and worse. Just because you will cook the venison later does not mean a little bacteria is okay! It still can affect the flavor even if it doesn’t give you food poisoning.
Prepare a clean place to stage your quarters and other cuts as you butcher your deer. The best option is straight into a clean cooler with ice, but a clean tarp, aluminum pan, fresh trash bag, sheet of clean plastic or cheese cloth is fine.
Heat Spoils
As I wrote in another article about venison safety in warm weather, temperatures above 40° F are the enemy of quality venison. Above this temperature, bacteria growth accelerates, and the warmer the faster.
Your overall goal should be to recover and field-dress your deer as quickly as possible to reduce the temperature of the meat, whether that means hanging in a walk-in cooler, icing down quarters in a cooler, or delivering it to a deer processor. If you spend half the day driving your buck around the county to show it off first, I have news for you: It’s not going to taste good.
Temperature management should continue until your venison is safely frozen, if not cooked and eaten. Whether you age the venison at home, deliver it to a processor, or process straight into your own freezer, keep the venison below 40° F.
Utensil Taint
Did I mention you should clean your knife? It bears repeating. Personally, I travel with multiple knives in my kit. I use a heavier knife for gutting and cutting through the sternum or joints. I switch to a small, short-bladed knife for skinning. Finally I switch to a short boning knife and a filet knife for quartering, de-boning and removing backstraps and other cuts. At each stage, I’m switching to a clean knife.
You don’t have to own multiple knives. A single knife can do the job, but please clean your blade regularly throughout the process. For the love of steak, don’t cut out the backstraps with an unwashed blade that just sliced through the intestines. Wash with soap and water or, if you’re out in the woods, use those scent-free wipes in your pack.
Venison has a subtle, unique flavor that I love. Though there are rare exceptions, if you handle it with care from harvest to table, venison should never be “gamey,” strong, musky or offensive.