Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Gut em in the woods or back at camp?

Aging would be another good reason to gut them but I’m certainly not setup for that.

Coyote tags?

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Out west, deer (and certainly elk) are normally cut up on the spot, so this question is kind of a moot point for me. Deer killed somewhat close to a road which are to be brought out whole are gutted at the kill site. Exceptions may be if a road is close by, then it is only to keep the body cavity clean. No need to drag unnecessary weight or keep the heat in longer than needed.

I have seen zero indication of a gut pile scaring off deer. I've actually seen them eating whatever was undigested, out of the pile.

Honestly, I have never seen this kind of debate come up in my circle of friends. This is just how it's done out here I guess.

Gotcha. If it was the sarcastic emoji I'd of not questioned it...but the whistling one didn't click in as quickly.

Right on Scott.

Depends

Never met a single local in SE AL that would clean their own deer.

I used to quarter mine where they fell. Locals on the lease would get so upset, bitching about the gutpile scaring other deer off.

I finally explained to them, that taking one of these deer in still intact, you are looking at $50 just to have them skin and gut it. Big buck or little doe, you are in for 50 as soon as it hits their door.

I agree with Scott, there is no "one size fits all" answer. The post is in "Deer Hunting" forum, so that should encompass Whitetail, Mule Deer and Black Tail deer habitat with a plethora of conditions.

This fascinates me.

As was said up the page, it depends. I've done it all ways. But I usually just throw 'em in the truck and bring 'em back to camp. Then I string 'em up head up (Found that the hide comes off easier) start skinning down to the front legs, then put a smooth rock or a golf ball in the hide and tie around it with a rope long enough to reach my vehicle. Then pull the hide off with the vehicle. Then quarter it throwing the meat into my 150 quart cooler with ice. The last place I hunted for 8 years was only 30 minutes from the house so I usually brought it home to do that because we didn't have a camp.

I do all this out of laziness, but I've never been able to detect any difference in taste in the meat from one I gutted when they hit the ground. Also, I like clean running water available when I gut it. washing the body cavity out immediately does more good once the body cavity is open to the air. Now if it's going to be 2-3 hours before I get to where I'm going to gut it, then I'll field dress it.

I saw a couple of you mention you did this to keep debris out of the body cavity. But more importantly it keeps a lot of hair out of the meat if you skin it first before gutting. Hair is a biotch to get off the meat.

I gut em in the woods unless there’s a creek nearby. If there’s a creek, I gut near there to have the luxury of rinsing the deer out in the creek. Maybe that’s bad , but how I do it.

Yeah, what PC state is he hunting in?

Gut piles scaring off deer is an old wives tale, shot several out of the same stand where a deer was field dressed the previous day. I've also field dressed in camp, dumped the innards into a trash barrel and carted to a spot on the property that we don't hunt. Usually by the next day the coyotes have things all cleaned up, surprising how fast they work.

I have absolutely no desire to gut my animals anywhere other than where they died.
I also have never paid someone else to gut and process my animals whether deer of elk.

Some of y'all need to outsert the stick.

The way I hang deer after skinning, I leave all the guts inside the chest cavity. Then I remove the backstraps, shoulders, neck meat, tenderloins, and finally the hams.

The guts never leave the chest. Then what is left is hauled off to a gut pile away from camp for the buzzard (aka county road crew) and coyotes.

This is thread is interesting to me, but not very relevant because I've never hunted deer east of the Mississippi. In my stomping grounds deer, with few exceptions, are gutted where they fall. Then again, if there is no road close by, I may use the gutless method on one.

Not gutting them right away seems like a Southern thing which given the warmer temperatures down there, seems just the opposite of what most think is the best meat handling practice. Innards weigh 21-23% of the deer’s live weight and I don’t want to drag out any more weight than I need to.

I wish that I’d kept a piece that a friend of mine sent me on amateur wild game processing. According to the piece, these guys took a beef cow out in the woods, shot it back in the swamp, dragged it through the dirt, hung it it the sun, cut it into hunks on the garage floor with some well meaning friends, let the dog lick it and freezer burned it. The conclusion was that yes, venison tastes just like beef.

What’s with the washing out of the cavity? The only thing left inside there after gutting that I eat is the tenderloins, which on our deer are about the size of a ballpark frank and they’re easily removed and put in the ziplock with the heart.

I just don’t understand what a couple twigs or leaves in there is going to mess up. Of course I admit that I have zero use for the ribs