So I shot an axis, prob 2 1/2 year old small buck. The meat is so gamey I can’t eat it, I’ve shot several over the last 5 years that all have tasted good, all ages and sexes. I have used the same processor for 10 years which is Schotts in Helotes, I stand by them giving you what you shot. The only theory I have is I shot it at about 4pm on a warmer day and it wasn’t gutted till probably 7pm bc I finished the evening hunt before retrieving it. Any thoughts ?

If I had to guess I'd say you waited too long to field dress it. Personally I wouldn't let one lay for 3 hours unless it was a really cold day. I'm not judging you, just giving a personal opinion.

3hrs is a little long for getting it gutted. Getting those guts out let’s the meat cool faster. You need that meat under 70 degrees as quickly as possible. From there you have a few days. The only deer I ever killed that tasted bad was one that I didn’t find the same day. It was cold, but he didn’t die the quick painless death he deserved, and then those guts sat in him for a good while. Yeah he really wasn’t good. While 3hrs is far from ideal, I wouldn’t have guessed it would ruin it, but that sounds like that’s what happened. Axis are big. The bigger the animal, the harder it is to cool them quickly. 3hrs before gutting an axis might be like 5-6 for a white tail.

You need the meat under 41 degrees within a few hours. Bacteria forms at any temperature above 41 degrees.

I don't think 3 hrs would ruin it. How long before you skinned it and put it on ice?

I’m thinking I did let it sit too long I guess. I have shot dozens of deer in the past and let them sit a few hours while I continue to hunt till dark and they never tasted bad. But maybe it was colder on those days? It’s really disappointing I have a ton of fresh axis I can’t eat. In the future I guess I’ll just not finish my hunt if I shoot early and immediately tend to the animal.

Also did you sling it up on your hood and tie it down then drive home?

Pitchfork, it was gutted about 3 hours after I shot and put in a walk in cooler at a processor.

Snake, I drive it from Rocksprings to SA 2 days later gutted, it was stiff cold and I put ice in the cavity. I’ve been doing the same thing going on 6 years now, never had a bad tasting animal.

IDK maybe it was sick or something......

Two things contributed to the tainted meat.
The three hours before gutting and leaving the hide on it for a couple of days.

The best tasting meat is always the meat that is handled properly.
If it wasn't, everyone would be doing it.

Pope, we typically gut then take them to a walk in cooler, typically they chill in there for a few days before we head back home and drop them off at a processor, never once has one ever tasted this way so I’m guessing maybe I let it sit too long but I’ve also done that before and never had bad meat. The shot was also a little more behind the shoulder then I would have liked, maybe it hit some guts then leaving it sit for 3 hours I’m not cold weather ?

Negatory. Cold aging a deer with the hide on is preferred. IF, it is shot, gutted and in a walk-in within an hour. This hunter let an animal lay way too long in warm weather and got meat spoilage.

How hot was it? Should be good unless it was 100 in full sun.

I'm thinking this. I've let plenty lay for three hours.

Wonder if the walk-in wasn't up to temp for some reason, and maybe it kicked on later?

Agreed. If it's cold enough I will always let it hang with the skin on. I always process my own meat, have let them hang with skin on for up to 5 or 6 days, and have never had bad meat.

Have you tried from different packages of the processed meat. Maybe got a couple of packages mixed from someone else.

Yep. I like to immediately eviscerate, skin, and cool.

It could just be a result of something the animal had been eating. Or maybe it had been stressed for a couple days and the adrenaline gamed up the taste.

A warm day sitting 3 hours is a problem to me. It doesn't take much to taint meat.

How long did it take you to get it to the processer? 3 hours before you gutted it, it could have been 6 or so hours before you got it in a cooler. Also if it sat in a cooler for a period of time before they did anything with it that is a problem too. If it was already experiencing spoilage or bacteria processing/freezing immediately may have been ok but a cooler would allow spoilage to continue. Uncontaminated stuff can age, but stuff that already has a bacterial problem will spoil in a cooler.

It wasn’t that hot, it was in December, maybe 65-70 degrees then cooler as the sun set.

It don't matter, 3 hours is too long.

TFF Caribou

Beef is quick aged at 65 degrees for three days. It takes a LONG time for the meat on an animal the size of a cow to be cooled down to that temperature. When you double surface area, you quadruple volume. You actually want microbial action to occur. That’s what aging is. It makes the flavor more mellow and more complex, as well as tenderizes the meat. The only pathogenic microbes in the meat of a healthy animal are on the outside. That’s why you should sear a steak, and then eat it as rare as you want, but you must completely cook ground meat. How cold do you think public land hunters in areas with no vehicle access get their meat? Back pack hunters go days without getting their kill on ice all the time, and it doesn’t harm their meat at all. Most of the spoilage bacteria have very limited action below 70 degrees. It will take a 110degree animal a long time to cool below that temperature, so getting the guts out and increasing airflow is key. Very large animals(elk, moose, bison) can suffer a malady called bone sour, where the most internal portions of the meat(against the bone) on the thickest parts of the animal will spoil because they cannot be cooled quickly enough. The solution is to cut to the bone and prop the meat open with a stick to allow more airflow while you bone the rest of the meat out. It takes some very cold weather to get the hind quarters of an elk below 70 degrees in a day if you leave the quarters whole. Easy refrigeration has confused a lot of people about food safety. For many thousands of years before refrigeration meat went several days without spoiling, and it will continue to do so. The cooler you get it, the longer it will last. Most meat is aged below 40 degrees for many reasons. 1) few if any pathogenic bacteria grow below 41 degrees, however, they’re still there, only in the outside, and properly cooked, depending whole muscle vs ground, will still be safe whether stored abover or below 41 degrees. 2) Meat aged at 34 degrees will take 14-28 days to reach the same point of aging as meat aged at 40 degrees for 7-14 days, which gives the processor more time to finish processing a batch of carcasses that will all age for an identical time period before being placed on the shelf. However, high volume operations the same aging can occur in only 2-3 days at 60-65 degrees without risk of spoilage bacteria getting out of hand and will have the same shelf life upon reaching the shelf as meat that had aged for 14-28 days at 34 degrees before hitting the shelf. Quick aging reduces freezer space and inventory which can be very important for important for massive suppliers handling thousands of animals per day. You can quick age and store 3000 animals or you can age at 34 degrees and store 28,000 animals! That doesn’t even figure he price per square foot of maintaining 34 degrees vs 60-65 degrees. 3) just as with elk, moose and bison, it can be difficult to get the round of a beef animal below 70 degrees on a suitable time frame without some degree of processing unless your cooler is colder. To quick age at 60-65 degrees they must get those animals processed very quickly, not because 60 degree air isn’t cool enough, but because it takes a lot longer to bring the internal meat temperature below 70 degrees with 60 degree air than with 34 degree air.

My meat started tasting MUCH less “gamey” and became MUCH more tender when I started giving my deer a little time before getting them in the freezer. I gut and quarter as quickly as possible, then if it’s 60 degrees or cooler outside, I get in no particular hurry to ice( keeping the meat dry allows less penetration of bacteria on the outside). I keep ice in the cooler( assuring air temps below 40) but not tons of it for the next week before I begin processing. Then I start with back straps and finish with the chuck giving the chuck the longest aging time, usually a full two weeks. I would go longer if I had a larger space and could dry age. Wet aging ( sealed container like a ziplock, or even just meat sitting on meat preventing some surfaces from drying) should stick closer to the low end of the aging times, while dray aging can actually go well beyond.

There are restaurants that age for over a year, then cut all the nasty looking black meat off.

Leaving the skin on is usually not a problem. It does provide some insulation which slows cooling, but it’s usually not a huge problem and actually helps keep the meat clean which is just as important.

Leaving the guts in probably just didn’t let the meat get under 70 quickly enough.

You said you kept hunting. Was someone else’s deer stacked on top of it in the truck on ride home? I once went on a duck hunt with a guy that bagged them all to keep his truck from getting messy. 20-30 ducks stacked on each other, sealed in a trash bag and left in the sun in the black bed of a pickup for 8hrs made for some pretty nasty ducks. He said he never liked he way duck tasted....well duh!

There is still the possibility of it being something else. 3hrs, while not generally recommended by anyone, still seems a little on the line. Bow hunters back out for the night and retrieve in the morning all the time. Granted it’s at night with no sun to heat the meat, and the temperatures are probably a lot lower. The only deer I ever had a problem with wasn’t collected that day and it was above freezing all night, but his guts were in for a lot longer than 3hrs, and he didn’t die quickly...probably not the day he was shot. .