I used to think guts were a bad thing. After several incidents over the decades, they're not a problem for the remaining deer at all. It used to be that after taking a deer, I'd rest that stand for the rest of season. It used to be. . . it used to be a lot of things.
A golden rule of deer hunting that I learned here: The best spot to shoot a deer is close to your pickup truck.
The reason we haul out the majority of our deer before gutting is it is just easy and fast to do so. Mind you, we've got it down to where a deer can be cleaned and out to the processor about 90 minutes after it's shot if all goes well. If we gut in place, it takes longer, but that's buried in the overall project of removing the carcass from the ravine.
The only remaining worry is what is attracted to the gut piles. We started off dumping guts on a wide-open part of a pasture, thinking we'd get a shot at coyotes. That never materialized. We've got coyotes and feral dogs in the vicinity. We've also got two species of vulture. If the guts get exposed out in the open, the vultures are more likely to hit them and clean them out before the dogs do. They're usually efficient and leave nothing but the stomach contents after 24 hours. Gut piles in the woods may sit for a few days before they get found by the dogs.
