There has always been in a difference in the meat taste and texture, of deer taken north in the Adirondack Park, and those taken in more southern zones, but then again we have plenty of mountainous areas in the south too, in addition to agriculture land, where it may have no game/wild like taste. Take one in nearby mountains, might reflect their diet, might not, they travel quite a bit to ag areas.
What escapes me is that people will say they are corn fed, or whatever is grown in fields by farmers, but they are browsers, and how long is corn or other grown things really available, they don't touch it around here until its close to harvest,(grain) what about all that's chopped. They come out like crazy right after a combine does a field, but that's whatever was missed, dropped etc. if you get one then, examine the stomach contents likely to be corn, but if you were to do the same at different times, not going to be the case.
Oats, they don't touch the grain, they may bed in it and lay down taller stands of it, it gets harvested, whatever falls through germinates, or birds get it. The deer absolutely love oat grass late season, they like the regrowth after harvest, and will stay on whats left or grows back right into winter, often times at the base of the plant. I plowed and disc'd strips in an oat field after harvest, oat grass came up real nice, and I took deer while there was oats in our field and 50 acres of it surrounding, stomach contents was all grass in each one, the meat was outstanding, taste and texture.
Farmer stopped doing crops except hay, so our field is fallow, nothing for em at all, weed killer from previous year still working, big change in deer traffic, the only green was orchard grasses and similar where I cut other fields and small areas, real green, but they browse it, not graze it. Stomach contents this year was all kinds of things, wild to the area, from apples, including small crab/cherry size ones which are abundant, some berries off prickers, yellow, almost looks like corn. Surrounding fields are in corn, harvest was during archery season, sometime before rifle, every deer taken here, no corn in the stomach, and there is reasonable expectation that whats left behind does take a while for em to exhaust as they will always browse those areas.
I could not really tell any difference in the meat, ones taken were around 3 years, killed instantly, gutted, skinned, cut up, trimmed and froze that day or the following morning, think I hung one overnight this year, each the meat was excellent, I grilled trimmings and other small cuts from different areas after each one.
Now last year, I carefully waited out an old doe, she was around 200 lbs, teeth worn right out, was eating oat grass heavily, like the others, but I think due to age, that meat was gamey enough to notice. Some observations from around here.
Friend and his son were out hunting, dad got a very nice 6 pt buck, there's 40 acres of corn, but long since harvested, the rest woods and swamp, that back strap was like a good piece of beef, impressive at how good it was. Good practice to get em skinned, cut up, trimmed and packed into the freezer immediately, as well as making a clean/immediate kill, though I've hit em in the spine, and had to finish em off too, can't hide that fact on longer shots it can happen, never had any adverse effect on the meat. I will say getting that fat trimmed off, and the whole thing cut up immediately, froze has to be the best policy, I like aged meat, but it has to be done under controlled circumstances, at a certain but stable temperature, humidity etc. if I am correct, let that venison age differently, results may not be what you expect, I've tried it.
