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

I never move them further than necessary to gut my deer.

I dont even know if it is just a southern thing.

Have hunted deer in WA, WY, AZ, KS, TX, KY, TN, AL and FL.

SE corner of AL, around the Ft Rucker area, is the only place I have ever seen it. Other Army friends said the same thing.

I asked alot of folks around there about it. My neighbor was a big-time archery guy, had his own TV show, he said that almost no one around there guts them before hauling them out. Right after I moved there, he went bowhunting in KS and shortly thereafter, he went to WY to bowhunt antelope. He said it was odd to see the guides dress the animals where they fell.

I wrote it up to just a local thing. Who knows.

Honestly I’m not surprised about the lack of AL guys dressing their own deer. The more expensive the club, the greater the chances they aren’t dressing their own game. It’s fairly common just to take them to processor shortly after they are killed. I’d say 90% of deer dropped off at the processors around here aren’t field dressed.

That is weird. I don't know anybody around here that doesn't dress them in the woods immediately. The majority process it themselves too.

In my 60+ years of hunting, I have never dragged a deer or elk or antelope anywhere with the guts in them. I never knew anybody that did either! I just assumed everybody guts em where they shoot em!
A few years ago, I shot a cow elk sniffing a fresh gut pile!

Where I hunt, we can haul a kill to the skinning shed quickly with AVT and small trailer.

Kill a deer, get on the cell phone, let'em know and soon there's transportation.

Works well for us.

DF

One of my all time favorite deer hunting memories was when I dropped a buck on opening day, gutted it and hauled it out. Then since we can legally hunt for each other here and we weren’t filled up, I went back to that same stand the next day and had a mother bobcat and her three mostly grown kits come in and eat at that gut pile.

I’m not real sure about a gut pile scaring off other deer either. Reason being I‘d shot a buck early on opening day, gutted it and went back up in my tree stand. A couple hours later I shot another one and it ran over to where that first one with the gut pile was and lay down right there not 20’ away.

I bone them where they hit the ground. I'm not packing out hide, head, bones or feet. And I sure as heck ain't gonna haul out guts. And it does not spook game. I remember a time back in CO when my father shot a bull elk. We pieced it down on the mountain and just took out edible meat and the antlers. The very next day I shot another bull less than 30 yards from where we worked on Dad's bull the day before.

That has been disproven so many times it is not funny. Nowadays they are weighed back at camp and gutted, in the past it was a long drag back to the car/truck and it was gutted a short distance from where it dropped.

I just load them up on an ATV, SxS, or truck bed and drive the 5 minutes back to camp, where there's a skinning shed. Dump guts and scraps in a cut down plastic drum to haul off to the dump-hole. If somebody else wants the deer (or hog), I'll run it to the game processor right up the road (10 minutes). If the weather is hot, I'll gut them before heading to the processor.

Any Zombie tags available with coyote tags? OTC or draw? Asking for a friend. Thanks

Just gotta scroll down the page on the website to procure - zombie is betwixed the oppossum and armadillo tags.

The only reason I load them up and field dress them on the other side of the farm, is because several neighbors dogs show up on the gut piles while I’m hunting the area for a few days. I don’t think dogs or coyotes spook them permanently, but I damn sure don’t want them promenading through while I’m waiting on another deer.

On public hunts, I gut them where they fall.

Gut them where they fall. Sometimes 4 or 5 miles to the nearest road, and one is not allowed to do cross country runs with ATV's. If an early evening take, one might hang pieces and do a workup next AM.

I've seen elk grazing within yards of a gut pile 1 and 2 days after the deposit.

Done it a lot of ways, but on average gut in the woods where they die. If long ways away, use the gutless boning method. If it's easy and will get me to a proper gambrel, I'll gut later. But usually in the woods.

Hard to argue with an instant 20 - 25% weight loss.

I am not afeered to drag a deer to a more suitable spot to gut, cut up or load into an ATV, trailer, truck, boat, canoe, etc.. Don't like to leave camp, vehicle or watercraft without a drag rope or drag. harness.

55+ years chasing whitetails here in PA and I’ve never seen (or heard of) anyone taking a deer out whole.

I have seen people dragging gutted deer backwards a few times over the years.

Gut em where they hit the ground, have killed other deer within 5 gut piles in the same area the same last week of hunting cleaning up and using available tags before seasons end, also pissed down a tree four or five times one day, had a doe come by two different times and take a poop where I pissed, she had to back up to the tree to leave it that close.

They know it's piss, but don't know it's people piss, let er fly men!

All I know is, I'm not dragging one of these beasts very far across the sandhills. Unless I have some help i gut 'em where they lay.......