I wonder if this is considered baiting

I gut them where they lay unless its too close to my stand. The pile is usually gone in a day but just in case, I don' t want to smell it. In the winter ,where they drop.

I prefer to hang my deer when field dressing,so I will drag(usually with the atv),to the nearest suitable tree.I don' t think the gut pile spooks other deer in itself...maybe the coyotes,wolves or bear(in the early seasons),may send the deer away for a while,but as aready stated,the pile is usually gone in a day or two.Besides,we are only allowed one deer per season so if you have one on the ground,you are pretty much packing up till next year.

Gut them where they lay. Neither the gut pile or the body of a dead animal has spooked another deer in my experience.

BURYING it is more ETHICAL??? I realize we usually do as we are taught, but I don' t follow your logic. What is more ethical than leaving the gutpile for other creatures of nature, from coyotes and coons down to flies. What does burying it acomplish. I am not saying you are wrong to do it, just that it doesn' t make sense to me. I am lucky enough to be able to hunt on a family ranch. I grew up hiking and hunting on this ranch and it is part of my SOUL. It would make me fighting mad for anyone to throw a scrap of paper or a soda can on it, and they would never be invited back. However, I gut every deer where I find them and after taking them to the headquarters and skinning and quartering them, I take the hide, excess bones and any other extraneous parts out to what we call the boneyard. We kill anywhere from 15-20 deer/year and when we go back the next year with more hides, bones, you can' t hardley tell that any had been thrown out the year before. A lot of critters get nutrition from this " boneyard" . So I guess I would say that it is more ethical to leave it up to nature to take care of.

Also, where I hunt, you hit rock about 4-6 inches deep, so you would have a lot of trouble burying anything!

Drag it to the nearest suitable tree, hang it up, and field dress it. Of course, if you are hunting the same area of Southwest Texas I am, you will have to drag it about fifty miles.

I usually field dress them where they lay. I have shot deer within feet of gutpiles and within 1 hour of shooting the first one. I don' t think it makes any difference.

CDH, I hunt in Northwestern Wisconsin at the end of November !! Usually at that time of year, the ground is frozen solid !! There are very few seasons where it would be soft enough to dig in !

Fellow Hunters,

Thanks for all your input over the last two weeks. It looks as if the majority opinion is to drop ' em and dress ' em in the same spot.

That' s what I' ve always done in the past, but up ' til now I' ve always hunted public land where you' d be lucky to get one deer, let alone a second or third. This is my first year of paying to be on a Southwest Texas lease, and I' ll be on the same stand most of the time. That' s why I was wondering if the gut pile would spook a deer. Thanks again.........MDJ

I' ll drag them a few yards to elevate the deers chest then gut it. A couple days later an all sign of what played out there is gone.
Dan

I hope it doesn' t bother them, cause I dropped a doe in my favorite spot yesterday and gutted her where she fell. I hope to shoot a buck from that same spot in the very near future!!!