I have always gutted it where it lays. I have never seen a gut pile spook deer out of an area. I do get a little scared if I'm going to the same stand the next morning in pitch dark though.[:-]

A place that I hunt called Camp Ripley if you shoot a deer you just gut it out and drag it back to your stand. Then hunt the rest of the day. The deer look at it, but they don't run away or anything like that.