Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Leaving a deer unattended in coyote/wolf country

A guy COULD use a Vikings t-shirt. All critters know only one quarter would be worth bothering with.

Osky

A guy COULD use a Vikings t-shirt. All critters know only one quarter would be worth bothering with.

Osky

Now that is funny right there!

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 just don’t think most predators can enjoy a meal with heavy human scent around. Yes, I’m versed in trapping too, need scent control to catch coyotes.

Had always left a deer in the woods at the Farm if it was cool enough if shot close to sun set....back in 1990 made a shot with a muzzleloader the last minutes light couldn't find blood with a flashlight....came back the next morning at first light still couldn't find blood went and walked the far fence row and found what was left of the deer....had never seen a coyote track ever in the area now you see tracks in every field and never leave a deer in the field with out a coat to keep coyotes off it....

I also hunt the UP there has alway been coyotes since I started hunting there back in 1976 we never had a problem with over a couple hundred deer kills....in 1978 saw my first wolf tracks in the UP trying to run a deer down....we never left a buck from then on for any amount of time with out at least a hat in them until we returned....

Was bow hunting with my Boss at the time in the Northern Lower he wanted some does harvested....his son shot a doe the first morning at first light heard the deer go down with a very good shot with in 2 minutes he could hear growling and yapping the direction the deer went.....2 hours later got out of the tree stand and walk in the thick brush and scare of a couple coyotes off....most of the hind quarters were eaten by coyotes no 50 yards from the tree stand...

Shot a mule deer in Texas where coyotes would easily devour a deer overnight. I wasn't able to get it out till following day, so I left my t-shirt & flavored chapstick on top of deer, next day all good/not been touched.

Never has been a concern down here in Tn to me.
Distances just ain't that great if dropping or retrieving stuff back at the truck before dragging something out.
Never have been in that position anyways.
Just leap frog on my day pack and gun while dragging.

In Maine growing up .
Drop a buck out in the willy whacks of 4x4 mile unincorporated townships like your T series blocks.
And ya got a hour or 2 hump back to camp to round up people to help drag.
It was a worry with yotes.
Leave Day pack on the chest.
Couple ciggerette butts on the chest.
Long john top.
Piss around on a tree.

Think it is more for a peice of mind urban legend old timer passed on thing....
But I would do it in the hope it would work
Dont think any of it would scare off a hungry predator on a easy score.

3 times as a teen in the late 70,s and early 80,s
Once in 2000
Never had yotes raid a Carcass...
But that is more attributed to any yotes being in the down wind scent vector and out and about during the day when they are mostly nocturnal predators anyways

Bears by november are pretty much going into den mode or pretty close to it up their.

Down here in Tn
Not an issue.
Might be on a evening shot deer and have to do a morning recovery.

They ain't gonna eat the antlers anyways....
And meat ain't a concern to me....

But I have never been in the situation to have to go recover a deer in the morning anyways.
I dont do alot of evening hunting .
Maybe two or 3 times a yr with slumlord.
I did sit on a buck he shot for about an hour 1 night.
Cause yotes are a issue around his place.
While he was going to get the pathfinder and Baby huey to help get it out of the woods.
I had gutted it out in the fading light, cause homie ain't cool on working with a blade in the dark with a flashlight only.
Little mistake with a razor sharp 110 =sliced up fingers or hand in deer blood and guts ain't a good thing.


I could see out west in places and in alaska how this would be a real concern with higher up the food chain predators.

I really dont think leaving human scent is gonna deter a hungry grizzly or wolves at all.

Look at how many times you hear stories of Grizzlies raiding a kill while hunters are physically around it.
And the danger of that.
Makes sense to have one guy pulling security and the other working on the kill in big bad attitude bear country.
Someone going out hunting alone in grizzly country is tempting fate when they got a game animal down IMO.
Look at all the dumbazz hikers across the planet that get attacked by predators, smelling like a human sure as heck didnt scare off a predator when that schit goes down.

🥴🥴🥴

Not really related to the OP's query but....I once wounded a large Mule deer and was trying to find where he went, after about an hour I realized there was a Coyote ahead of me doing the same thing. The buck wouldn't stop and lay down because of the Coyote chasing it, buck never recovered.

You saying he can join our club, Bob?

Jag...
Is that pic from like 18 hundred and 06
???

👍😄😄😄🙂🙋‍♂️

JK man...👍

Only seen a deer left overnight once in this area. This is what we found the next morning;

Makes the pack out a cinch.

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.

I left out the bown bear on my caribou cow, which I've related several times already.

When I came back the next morning, the bear that had jumped me on my way back to the truck the night before was at the kill site.

It had eaten the liver, bit into the heart, ate some of the brisket meat, crapped all around the carcass, and was laying on the gut pile, which had rolled about 50 yards down the steep slope.

My take-away from that is that they would rather feast on internal organs than muscle meat at first, hence my desire to get meat as far away from the guts as is feasible if meat has to be left.

And that pulley system I used on several caribou? I packed it in and left it there after the first use, for subsequent trips. Twice more used over the next 10-12 years. It's still there, but I haven't been in almost 20 years. Probably inoperable by now, but it was cheap enough, and worth it. Actually, I'd planned to get a lot more use out of it, and the small log shelter I built earlier that summer, off trail and well hidden, so I didn't have to pack an 8 lb tent up there and back.

The next year, F&G changed the permit application regs from allowing just one application per species, to 3 applications, one animal. ($$$$$) My wife and I went from getting at least one caribou permit almost every year, to one every 3 or 4 years, as a whole bunch of clueless idiots then shotgunned applications out, without knowing anything about the rigors of this particular hunt. 250 permits issued annually - the kill was never more than 10, often only 1-3. Only once did I not fill a permit- the year both my wife and I drew. I never went back to fill mine, as our freezer was full of sheep, caribou, moose already. No point....

Bummer.

Excellent real life record of a bear moving in on a hunter kill. Two items jumped out at me, highlighted in the selected quote below.


First, this critter seemed to think that putting his strong scent (crap) around his claim had some value, perhaps in deterring other meat eaters, though that is speculation. This grizzly agreed with our practice of putting our scent around our cache, (and with an animal left till we could come get it with horses, we would crap near it, daily if practical).

Second, from my experience I would agree that grizzlies, wolverines and black bears tend to eat internal organs first. So making internals easy to get while making the meat harder to get is a practical combination if leaving meat in the field.

Or it could have just been the blueberryshitts.

Enough guys have lost animals to predators overnight to say this isn't true. Luckily, I'm not one of them.

Why did the bear poop in the woods?

LOL! Organs have more fat, probably why they like them better than meat.

I use the gutless method, and once I have all the meat off the carcass I slit the belly and let the guts slide out to give any scavengers an option rather than the meat hanging in the tree.

It worked once with a black bear, left the meat alone.

if the hogs find it there wont be hardly even hair or bones left