Gutting a deer away from the kill spot

[Harvest the Land]

Hey folks,

When you're hunting in a good area where you're consistently seeing deer and you manage to take a nice buck and it drops right in the middle of that area, do you drag the deer away some distance before you gut it so that the other deer don't get spooked out by dead deer guts, and so you can go back and keep hunting that area in the future? Or do the deer not get spooked out and it doesn't matter where you gut it in an area that has lots of deer activity?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[HarryToolips]

I don't think it spooks them...I shot 2 deer this year in one area, albeit a month apart...but I've heard that deer aren't spooked by it but who knows..

[J_T]

To kill deer, I hunt out of a treestand. Yes, almost always drag the deer whole to the truck. Drive to a common location for gutting and skinning. Put up a Trail cam to watch the night action on a fresh kill.

I do agree though, I have arrowed deer that drop and bleed out on the spot. And the next day deer are passing through on the same trail.

Question might be, if you do create a disturbance how likely is it you will bring in noise and predator activity that might preclude prey species from coming in?

[takla1]

It doesn't bother other deer at all,or moose,or elk for that matter.Animals die in the woods all yr round.They are not intelegent enough to decern wether the dead deer died from preditation/old age /or your bullet,they are used to comeing across death in their home territories.
My son shot a bull moose a few yrs back as it should over the gut pile of the moose my dad shot the day before.Ive also seen similar in the bush with deer.Of course bear will move in and eat any bear remains...makes little difference from my experience.

takla

[DANOSON]

I think the problem would be all the other activity from the clean up crews ( ravens and eagles bears etc) but once they have done there job back to normal. So my 2 cents would say if you plan on hunting the same spot drag away unless you are not getting back there for a longer period of time. Mother nature gets things done fairly quickly.

[MichelD]

Following up on DANOSON's comments, the clean-up crew ususally has the place spotless in 3 days.

[Glenny]

Saw a moose gutpile last week in the morning and it was gone by the evening.

[Ourea]

Real life example..........
We killed a WT 2 years ago on a site that I was monitoring with a trail cam.
I was very curious to see how the gut pile and nature's clean up crew would affect the deer at this site.
When I pulled the cam a few days later I was surprised to see deer standing within feet of the gut pile feeding away.
This is later the same evening of the kill.

We have even seen scrapes created right beside the gut pile blood stains.

[Big Lew]

Nope, have seen deer wander by later in the day, some even sniffing at the remains.
If the 'clean up crew' is there, I haven't seen other deer.
I have taken my deer 'whole' and gutted them elsewhere so that other hunters don't
key in on that spot though.

[coach]

A friend of mine killed a buck a few years ago, gutted it, dragged it down to a lower toad then hiked back to get his truck. When he drove back to retrieve the deer, two more bucks were feeding right beside it. As someone said earlier, animals don't have the intelligence to link all the cause and effect stuff together.