Russ otten

I' m with Strut. Can' t see gutting in timber as Most of my deer are taken within 1/2 mile of the house. Easier to handle, water handy, gut under the hanging tree to skin and 10 feet to the garage for butchering. No leaves, grass, dirt, etc. The scraps usually fit in a 5 gal. bucket, dump them in our hayfield and the buzzards clean it up in less than 24 hrs.
Russ

mauser06

opening day last year my dad drops a doe and im standing there while he field dresses it..6 deer run by me so i drop the lead doe...gut her take them back to out stand and put some orange on them for saftey...sit and wait about an hour a bunch of deer come through and i take a 6pt buck....they could care less what was there....im not one to care much about scent control....we try to playthe wind but thats about it...i dont wash our clothes in soap or anything smelly either but thats it..we were both covered in blood and sweating ect....when the deer are running for their lives they dont have much time to check the wind i guess.......

Bob S

I gut them where they fall. It won`t bother the other deer. Also, I don`t want to drag the extra weight through the swamp.

thundermug

When I hunted private land, I didn' t want to drag the extra 30 pounds...Now I hunt public land and the first one was field dressed, well. The biologist assigned to that WMA tore me a new one...he said the state wants live weight, not dressed weight. Now I gotsta drag it all out, let the biologist weigh the deer, remove the jaw so he can properly age the deer, and let the other people gawk and say wow, that one will weigh 140...150. They average 120 down here, guts and all. Then drag it back into the woods, and gut it.

strut

Thunder, can' t they figure out what a field dressed deer would have weighed on the hoof and get within a pound or 2 down there, That is just about rediculous, what if it took you several hours to get it to the check station and being in warm temps I would want it field dressed before they played around with it.

jred

I can see your reasoning in this. I personlly have never done so but I have be concerned with the remains of deer.

Untill... Last year when taking a deer during the moring hunt. I did gut the deer where in past and left it. Normally I would take the deer on the ATV to the road or camp and dressed it out.

During the afternoon hunt I miss a shot at a good sized deer due to my lack of focus thinking that no other deer would possibly come around being that the guts of another deer is laying around.

I imagine when thinking about it, deer have never seen this of would' nt even know that it was infact deer remains/guts.

I know deer must be familar with the remains of wild animal in the woods and as long as they did not detect any theatening sents they will not be alarmed.

Good luck!

Gryan

I always gut them where the fall. Last year, shot a nice seven point on one property and gutted him as usual. I didn' t get another deer off of that stand. In fact, we didn' t have deer come through that trail for the rest of the year. It was a very well used trail that I funnelled several years ago. ( I opened the fence with the farmer' s permission) Maybe it was nothing. Maybe not!

On that property, I' ll drag them out.

Greg

lhook7

I usually gut them where I drop them. Last season I shot a small eight point at first light. I was in the woods with one of my friends, so I got out of the tree and field dressed the deer them climbed back into the tree to wait until 10:00am which was our pre-arranged time to leave our stands. About half an hour after getting back in the tree I was sitting in the stand watching squirrels play when I heard a noise behind me; I looked and there was a doe standing a few feet from the dead deer and a buck about five yards behind her in the brush watching it all happen.

bearlot

I always gut my deer where ever he falls. Just makes it a little lighter for dragging.

John Deer

I don' t think that it really matters. I would suggest that if it is close enough to your house, take the deer home to gut it. Like some of the guys have pointed out, it' s much cleaner that way. If your too far from home and time doesn' t allow it, just gut the deer right there. If there' s water nearby and it' s not in the opposite direction of your truck or four wheeler, drag the deer there to gut it so you can clean up after you get the job done.