I’m sure it’s mentioned here, if you wound a deer & it runs off, likely eaten by coyotes or whatever overnight. This thread is about an animal you kill & walk up to, field dress.
Some say just field dressing the deer leaves enough scent around. I’ll go with extra insurance.
We shot an elk in CO in the afternoon, plenty of coyotes around, tracks, yipping, Mtn lion tracks also, even saw a bear nearby. We field dressed then I left my T-shirt on the carcass for the night. The next morning, the carcass was untouched, 1 mile from camp.
I've done the same more than once, 3 and four miles from the trailhead, without the t-shirt and it was untouched for 2-3 days. A sample of one with a negative result doesn't really prove anything.
