Do deer avoid fresh gut piles?

I've had deer walk by while feeding or just moving stop and smell a gut pile and not be alarmed. They were not the big buck kind just does and fawns and 1 1/2 year old bucks. So maybe the big guys would care.

I don't think it bothers them much. I shot a bull elk once that was less than 25 feet from the gutpile of a bull my father killed the day before. He didn't act alarmed at all.

quote:

Originally posted by 45otto:
Do deer avoid fresh gut piles?

I don't know about deer, but have shot antelope within 50 feet of a fresh gut pile.

I've gutted a few elk 100-300 yds on the hill behind and within sight of my house. Other elk and deer walked by and fed near those gut piles until the birds made them disappear.

I've arrowed a doe and had a buck come in two or three minutes later unspooked. Lots of blood on the ground and the doe was only 20 or so yards from where she was shot.

No, I don't think gut piles, blood, or carcasses automatically spooks them. Recently had an eight point whitetail buck walk right up and mill about the area where a dead deer was laying on the ground (from a shot done 20 minutes earlier). The buck fed and walked about unalarmed for several minutes. At times he was within 3 or 4 feet of the deer laying on the ground.

I shot a caribou in Alaska that was pissing on the spot where my hunting buddy had shot a bull the previous day. He was not spooked by it, in fact he was attracted to it. Maybe he was reacting to the urine scent and not the blood.

My wife and I shoot whitetail does in the afternoon at a local ranch every season. We shoot from hay stacks and generally leave the deer as they lay in the open field until the end of the day.

We will shoot one or two and then a while later a few more will move into the field.The new deer often walk within a few yards of the dead ones. Most of the time the new deer will show some reaction to the dead deer, but it never stops them from continuing into the field and feeding.

This year we shot 4 all within 30 yds of each other over a 4 hour period. The last deer was shot 5 yds from a dead one. It briefly looked at the dead deer and continued feeding until it caught a bullet in the lungs. The other deer with the last one shot, as I recall there were about 4 more, just stood around until I walked into the field to start gutting and recovery.

I once shot a whitetail buck, he died in his tracks. I was still in the stand and another buck walked over to the dead deer and actually smelled him. This gave me time to arrow him also.

I had a hunter kill an Elk with in 100 ft of a gut pile from the day before.

I also shot a warthog who was 30ft from the one I had already shot 10 minutes before.

I have no reason to think it bothers them.

I shot a nice bear off a moose gut pile several years ago.

I have shot a second deer with 60 yards of a gut pile off my stand. And done it more that 1 year. I don't think they notice it too much. Makes great coyote bait too for after the deer season!

Over the years I have shot deer near gut piles I do not think it brothers them.

One afternoon I shot a 10 point and gutted it where it layed. All my hunting buddies gave me shit for not dragging the deer off a ways. The next morning, I offered to let my hunting buddies hunt from my stand. No one would take up my offer because of the gut pile. Long story short, I shot an 8 point standing 30 yards from the gut pile. The 8 point was relaxed and didn't seem to care at all.

Around here it is not the gut pile that scares game, it is all the birds that come to eat guts. Within minutes, the magpies, ravens,and eagles are flitting around and on the gut pile, and I have seen elk avoid a drainage because of it until the guts are gone(about 2 days). If it is a prime hunting area, I will load the animal ungutted and haul to good area to gut and shoot coyotes. Granted, I am on a ranch with good equipment , not in wilderness. Daryl.

At my hunt camp in the U.P. and the farm down state we never gut a deer or bear in the woods. I bring them to the barn and put the guts in a tub.
Then I dump them at a blind set-up to shoot coyotes.
I don't like the idea of attracting coyotes or wolves to my deer stands, anymore than need be. Or the ravens and crows raising hell near a stand, that helps attract the coyotes and wolves.

Haven't ever had an opportunity to test it with deer but I did shoot a pig while it was eating other pig guts. So I would say it doesn't spook pigs at all, lol.