TOUGH Young Doe!

[in His sight]

Literally, she had the toughest, chewiest, backstrap I have EVER eaten(gnarly old bucks included)...any thoughts on why, and/or a similar experience? She was a yearling doe, harvested last Thursday (dropped in her tracks at 80 yards) and immediately retrieved and taken to processor. Skinned and quartered and placed on ice for two days, draining water regularly. Sunday, I prepared the backstraps and tenderloins for freezing, but left one in frig for another day. Grilled the backstrap as I have done hundreds of times in the past and UGH!!! Tough as shoe leather, even served it medium rare. Any ideas??? Thanks for your ideas...

 

[dwhee87]

You sure you got your deer back from the processor?

 

[bloodiarrow68]

That's what I was thinking.

 

[NCHillbilly]

I have found that less than a week of aging usually results in noticeably tougher meat. May have still been in rigor mortis. Or, as DW said, may not have been your deer.

But, I have also eaten backstrap that I cut off a deer an hour earlier that wasn't tough. Maybe just a tough deer.

 

[ugajay]

I've known mean old ladies and I've known mean little girls...

 

[Blisterapine]

That's reason #2 why I don't shoot doe's, for one , way to many get killed with the stupid 10 doe's per hunter reg.
By far the best meat is a fat pre-rut buck. It's not even comparable to the meat of a doe.

 

[in His sight]

I removed the backstraps and tenderloins from the cooler of my deer (watched processor skin and quarter) and wrapped them myself. I usually wait at least 2-3 days before doing that to allow rigor mortis to resolve(24 hours is all that rigor mortis lasts). Must have been a "mean little girl"...
She was feeding all around me , within 10 yards, for several minutes, so close that I had to wait for a good time to 'throw up'. She even looked up at me several times and then went back to feeding. Must have been very edgy! When I thought she was sufficiently behind a tree for me to 'throw up and aim', she spooked and bolted off 75 yards, jumping an old fence and then stopped and began to feed again. I allowed her to calm some and then dropped her, but the adrenalin must have been still high even after the few minutes of calm feeding. Man what a difference from a "non spooked" clean kill. Hope the tenderloins held up better when iIthaw them.

 

[in His sight]

That's reason #2 why I don't shoot doe's, for one , way to many get killed with the stupid 10 doe's per hunter reg.
By far the best meat is a fat pre-rut buck. It's not even comparable to the meat of a doe.

NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for this statement! Testosterone is the culprit for making any game taste "gamey". Perhaps you like the taste of gamey meat, and that is just fine. But, in general most people do not. So, attempting to further your agenda of killing bucks to manage the herd by comparing a "fat pre-rut buck" is not even close.

Likewise, I suspect no one (OR VERY FEW) kills ten doe a year, regardless of the "stupid 10 does per hunter reg". To manage a herd effectively, does MUST be taken out - that is a scientific fact!!! And they do taste better, in general.

Stick to answer folks questions w/o interjecting your biases. IE, your answer to the question on Bobcats recently.

 

[j_seph]

This is caused by all the starch in the corn

 

[NCHillbilly]

NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for this statement! Testosterone is the culprit for making any game taste "gamey". Perhaps you like the taste of gamey meat, and that is just fine. But, in general most people do not. So, attempting to further your agenda of killing bucks to manage the herd by comparing a "fat pre-rut buck" is not even close.

Likewise, I suspect no one (OR VERY FEW) kills ten doe a year, regardless of the "stupid 10 does per hunter reg". To manage a herd effectively, does MUST be taken out - that is a scientific fact!!! And they do taste better, in general.

Stick to answer folks questions w/o interjecting your biases. IE, your answer to the question on Bobcats recently.

As someone who has eaten deer meat in vast quantities on a very regular basis for five decades, I can tell you that there is absolutely no difference in the taste of doe meat vs. buck meat. Especially with younger deer. I have killed a couple of older, rutting bucks that were a bit tough and stronger flavored, but 99% of the time, "gaminess" is something that doesn't exist unless you don't handle the meat properly. What they have been eating, where they live, and other factors make a lot more difference than the sex of the deer.

And, you may be blessed to be in an area with a high deer population. I kill does in those type of places, too. But in some places I hunt, there is no way I would kill a doe, because every one is needed. And in the area where I live, it is illegal to kill does for the most part. We have one doe day a year in my county. In the five counties west of me, there is no doe day at all. I wish we didn't have the one doe day that we have.

There are a lot of areas that are completely shot out from folks killing too many does. Every place is not the same, and many places simply can't sustain doe harvests. Some can. In an area with a low deer population and marginal habitat, taking a young buck for meat is going to be a lot better for the deer herd than taking out the means of making more deer next year.

Scientific fact-deer "managed" themselves just fine for a couple hundred thousand years before they ever saw a human.

 

[NCHillbilly]

NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for this statement! Testosterone is the culprit for making any game taste "gamey". Perhaps you like the taste of gamey meat, and that is just fine. But, in general most people do not. So, attempting to further your agenda of killing bucks to manage the herd by comparing a "fat pre-rut buck" is not even close.

Likewise, I suspect no one (OR VERY FEW) kills ten doe a year, regardless of the "stupid 10 does per hunter reg". To manage a herd effectively, does MUST be taken out - that is a scientific fact!!! And they do taste better, in general.

Stick to answer folks questions w/o interjecting your biases. IE, your answer to the question on Bobcats recently.

Bias goes both ways. You are just as biased as he is. So am I. We all have biases.

 

[LT6767]

Literally, she had the toughest, chewiest, backstrap I have EVER eaten(gnarly old bucks included)...any thoughts on why, and/or a similar experience? She was a yearling doe, harvested last Thursday (dropped in her tracks at 80 yards) and immediately retrieved and taken to processor. Skinned and quartered and placed on ice for two days, draining water regularly. Sunday, I prepared the backstraps and tenderloins for freezing, but left one in frig for another day. Grilled the backstrap as I have done hundreds of times in the past and UGH!!! Tough as shoe leather, even served it medium rare. Any ideas??? Thanks for your ideas...

Years ago I took a medium sized doe and the meat from that one just wasn't good.... chewy and tough. Weird..

 

[in His sight]

As someone who has eaten deer meat in vast quantities on a very regular basis for five decades, I can tell you that there is absolutely no difference in the taste of doe meat vs. buck meat. Especially with younger deer. I have killed a couple of older, rutting bucks that were a bit tough and stronger flavored, but 99% of the time, "gaminess" is something that doesn't exist unless you don't handle the meat properly. What they have been eating, where they live, and other factors make a lot more difference than the sex of the deer.

And, you may be blessed to be in an area with a high deer population. I kill does in those type of places, too. But in some places I hunt, there is no way I would kill a doe, because every one is needed. And in the area where I live, it is illegal to kill does for the most part. We have one doe day a year in my county. In the five counties west of me, there is no doe day at all. I wish we didn't have the one doe day that we have.

There are a lot of areas that are completely shot out from folks killing too many does. Every place is not the same, and many places simply can't sustain doe harvests. Some can. In an area with a low deer population and marginal habitat, taking a young buck for meat is going to be a lot better for the deer herd than taking out the means of making more deer next year.

Scientific fact-deer "managed" themselves just fine for a couple hundred thousand years before they ever saw a human.

Agree with all. However, those counties/ areas you refer to that have very limited doe days are being "managed" by rules that hopefully all follow. That is based on all the facts you alluded to. If the areas are being "shot out" they are not due to appropriate management, but illegal taking of deer. In the case referred to, the issue is the "stupid 10 does per hunter reg". Clearly that is only in areas where Management dictates the population can handle...and I submit, NO Respectable hunter is taking anywhere close to that, regardless.

 

[in His sight]

Bias goes both ways. You are just as biased as he is. So am I. We all have biases.

I suspect you keep your biases to yourself, however. As do I. Simply stated, folks should stick to answering a question if they feel compelled to. But, they need to get off the "soapboxes"

 

[GAHUNTER60]

Yes, they say a deer shot unawares of your presence is better on the table than a deer killed after a chase. However, I've always heard that the difference is in the taste, not the consistency, of the meat!

That said, I've eaten lots of venison shot on dog hunts in northern Florida, and it tasted just as good as any deer I ever shot from a stand in Georgia.

The toughest venison I ever tried to eat was from an eight-pointer I shot on the muzzleloader hunt on Ossabaw Island. The buck was the largest buck killed on that particular hunt, and was aged by the biologists, officially, at 8-1/2 years, however, they said it could even be older. They just couldn't tell from the jaw bone.

On the table, the deer was totally inedible! No matter what you did to it, you could chew it. It was like trying to eat a pencil eraser. I ended up donating it to the Atlanta Food Bank, where's they used it in a stew to feed the homeless. I'm glad I wasn't homeless at that time!

 

[NCHillbilly]

Agree with all. However, those counties/ areas you refer to that have very limited doe days are being "managed" by rules that hopefully all follow. That is based on all the facts you alluded to. If the areas are being "shot out" they are not due to appropriate management, but illegal taking of deer. In the case referred to, the issue is the "stupid 10 does per hunter reg". Clearly that is only in areas where Management dictates the population can handle...and I submit, NO Respectable hunter is taking anywhere close to that, regardless.

I don't think it's illegal taking of deer, or even high limits-it's just high concentrations of hunters who don't think about what they're doing.

Example:

The GA Piedmont usually has an average of somewhere around 30 deer per square mile in good habitat. A square mile is 640 acres. So, assuming a roughly 1:1 buck/doe ratio, which is fairly common in most areas, you have 15 does and 15 bucks on 640 acres. Let's fudge the ratio a bit and say that the ratio is a little higher, and you have 20 does on that square mile, and ten bucks.

Most biologists would agree on doe harvest that a general rule is that taking 1 doe per 75 acres will decrease deer density, 1 doe per 150 acres will stabilize density, and 1 doe per 200 acres will increase density.

So, to keep the same deer population that you have now, you would need to take no more than four or five does off that square mile this year.

OK, let's put this in the real world. If that 640 acres is all on one parcel or club, so far so good. But, that's not usually the way it works nowadays. Let's say that that 640 acres consists of a 200-acre property, a 100-acre property, four 50-acre properties, and a scattering of smaller 10-40 acre properties. This would be pretty normal for a lot of the southeastern Piedmont.

What if the 200-acre property is leased by four hunters, not unusual. Maybe two hunters are hunting the hundred acre tract. Most of the smaller tracts will have anywhere from one to several folks hunting on each one. 20 hunters on a square mile of Piedmont land would not be a bit unusual. A lot of places, there are probably more hunters than that. I know places where half a dozen people a year hunt 50 acre tracts.

Let's be generous, and say that there are only 10 hunters hunting that square mile, which would be pretty unusually low hunter numbers the way properties in the Piedmont are mostly in <100 acre tracts, and folks hunt pretty much every piece of huntable land.

If every one of those ten hunters kills just ONE doe apiece, half the does have been removed from that square mile, twice the number you would need to take to keep the same deer population. If it's 20 hunters on there, or each one kills two does apiece, there are no does left. None. How's that season looking next year?

Now add in mortality from roadkills, predators eating fawns, and such. Or think about areas like north GA, which may have a 10 deer per square mile population.

How hard is it in the real world for the deer population to be wiped out in an area by well-meaning hunters, none of whom are hunting illegally or taking more than a couple deer a year?

Not very hard.

 

[kmckinnie]

Just because the doe was Medium size does not mean it was a young doe.
Just food for thought.

 

[in His sight]

I don't think it's illegal taking of deer, or even high limits-it's just high concentrations of hunters who don't think about what they're doing.

Example:

The GA Piedmont usually has an average of somewhere around 30 deer per square mile in good habitat. A square mile is 640 acres. So, assuming a roughly 1:1 buck/doe ratio, which is fairly common in most areas, you have 15 does and 15 bucks on 640 acres. Let's fudge the ratio a bit and say that the ratio is a little higher, and you have 20 does on that square mile, and ten bucks.

Most biologists would agree on doe harvest that a general rule is that taking 1 doe per 75 acres will decrease deer density, 1 doe per 150 acres will stabilize density, and 1 doe per 200 acres will increase density.

So, to keep the same deer population that you have now, you would need to take no more than four or five does off that square mile this year.

OK, let's put this in the real world. If that 640 acres is all on one parcel or club, so far so good. But, that's not usually the way it works nowadays. Let's say that that 640 acres consists of a 200-acre property, a 100-acre property, four 50-acre properties, and a scattering of smaller 10-40 acre properties. This would be pretty normal for a lot of the southeastern Piedmont.

What if the 200-acre property is leased by four hunters, not unusual. Maybe two hunters are hunting the hundred acre tract. Most of the smaller tracts will have anywhere from one to several folks hunting on each one. 20 hunters on a square mile of Piedmont land would not be a bit unusual. A lot of places, there are probably more hunters than that. I know places where half a dozen people a year hunt 50 acre tracts.

Let's be generous, and say that there are only 10 hunters hunting that square mile, which would be pretty unusually low hunter numbers the way properties in the Piedmont are mostly in <100 acre tracts, and folks hunt pretty much every piece of huntable land.

If every one of those ten hunters kills just ONE doe apiece, half the does have been removed from that square mile, twice the number you would need to take to keep the same deer population. If it's 20 hunters on there, or each one kills two does apiece, there are no does left. None. How's that season looking next year?

Now add in mortality from roadkills, predators eating fawns, and such. Or think about areas like north GA, which may have a 10 deer per square mile population.

How hard is it in the real world for the deer population to be wiped out in an area by well-meaning hunters, none of whom are hunting illegally or taking more than a couple deer a year?

Not very hard.

Very well thought out analogy. Not to make light of any of this, but in my humble opinion, based on the example above, "...Houston, we have a problem...". No effective way to speculate how many parcels are in a square mile, and/or how many well meaning hunters are on any given parcel... I AGREE "10 does per hunter" is a ridiculous number, in almost any area!! What is the fix??

 

[Nicodemus]

Yes, they say a deer shot unawares of your presence is better on the table than a deer killed after a chase. However, I've always heard that the difference is in the taste, not the consistency, of the meat!

That said, I've eaten lots of venison shot on dog hunts in northern Florida, and it tasted just as good as any deer I ever shot from a stand in Georgia.

The toughest venison I ever tried to eat was from an eight-pointer I shot on the muzzleloader hunt on Ossabaw Island. The buck was the largest buck killed on that particular hunt, and was aged by the biologists, officially, at 8-1/2 years, however, they said it could even be older. They just couldn't tell from the jaw bone.

On the table, the deer was totally inedible! No matter what you did to it, you could chew it. It was like trying to eat a pencil eraser. I ended up donating it to the Atlanta Food Bank, where's they used it in a stew to feed the homeless. I'm glad I wasn't homeless at that time!

I killed an old doe like that one time. All I could see was from her neck up in the gallberries. I would have never shot her if I had seen all of her. Ain`t no telling how old she was. Her hip bones looked like they were fixing to poke through the hide she was so poor. Reminded me of a wore out old Rakestraw heifer. She weren`t fit to eat.

 

[transfixer]

Very well thought out analogy. Not to make light of any of this, but in my humble opinion, based on the example above, "...Houston, we have a problem...". No effective way to speculate how many parcels are in a square mile, and/or how many well meaning hunters are on any given parcel... I AGREE "10 does per hunter" is a ridiculous number, in almost any area!! What is the fix??

The only way I see of fixing this problem is if the DNR were to reduce the doe days drastically, if they would go back to the way they used to assign doe days according to a county by county basis, they have the means to know how many does are taken in each county now with game check, some counties obviously are more heavily hunted than others, so it only makes sense to a normal thinking person ! I wish they could cut back on how many does we are allowed to kill, but the state legislature controls that, and thanks to our many automobile insurance companies the legislators are in their very deep pockets !

I hunt in Oglethorpe county, and have for the last 40+years, I know what the deer population once was, and what it is now, it isn't 1/4 of what it used to be, due to ridiculous bag limits and liberal doe days, our herd has suffered, I too used to shoot a doe for the freezer as I believe they do taste better normally, but I haven't shot one in the last 4 or 5 years because the population is so low.