This is an awesome site, although I don' t write much. I do have a question, though....
I' ve seen many posts talking about finding your deer 8+ hours after the kill. I' ve been watching the Deer Farm .... I mean a whitetail hunting channel and I NEVER see those guys gutting their deer. I know it' s a TV production, but some of those deer get loaded up and hauled away without being gutted. Is it different up here, or do you guys also gut ' em right away. If we' ve tracked a deer for a while and it gets bloated, I know the meat tastes different. How is it in the south where you hunt in above freezing temps? Can you hang them for a couple days without problem? Do you drag them from the kill site? I' ve shot bucks during rifle season sniffing gut piles.
Just curious

I am from Alabama, and we hardly hunt to many days in freezing temps. i always gut my deer if i know that it may be a few hours before i can clean it. i never let my deer hang. down here the bacteria will get into it and ruin it. people say that it makes it tenderer but i think that it is the bacteria breakingdown the tissue in the muscles.

I hunt in ks where temps can be from 80 to -10. I only gut my deer in the field if i know it will take a while to drag it out or if the path out is long and diffucult. I do however hang and gut my deer imediatly at home, we do this so we can throw the guts in an observable place to thin out the yotes a little. If it is below freezing i will hang them out for 2-3 days meat seems to cool and taste better.