Hunting & Fishing Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

buds444

Sergeant
Full Member
Minuteman
May 30, 2011
114
0
41
Utah
Sorry for the stupidity of the question, but I'm curious to know where everyone leaves their leftovers after cleaning their game? If you clean them right on the spot and leave all the leftovers, will they be eaten and taken care of by other animals? If so how long do you think it takes for a pile of leftovers to be gone?

I haven't hunted so this is just curiosity for me, but I also in all my years of being outdoors have never come across any entrails or piles of leftovers. It'd seem that nature does a good job taking care of itself.

Do any of you pack out your stuff?

Anywho, thanks for the insight.

- Brandon
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I haven't big game hunted in a while, but growing up we'd always leave our guts, etc. Or if boning it out the whole carcass. We'd of course try to harvest everything that was practical.

Yotes/bears/birds/etc will take care of the ikcy stuff in no time flat.

It isn't as if animals don't die on their own all the time.

That said, I'd imagine location matters -- in our case, we were always quite a ways from roads/dwellings etc. If you're someplace where lots of people are likely to see/smell/be eaten by the bear, it might be prudent to do something different.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

pretty much a givin that you gut it and leave everything where you shot it. obviously not in the land owners front yard if it is on private property. Most times you can leave it to mother nature and here critters to clean it up and it does not last long. There are also some very healthy life giving nutrients in the gut pile that critterts will dwell on.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I leave it on the property where it was taken. Out of sight out of mind. Normally just a day or two and it is gone. Bear/coyote/buzzards get on it pretty quick here.

I left some scraps in front of my trail camera about three weeks ago just to see what would get it. It took 42 minutes from the time I left it till buzzards were tearing it up.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I only move it if I can put it in a better place to pop a coyote feeding on the guts the next day.
smile.gif


If there are bear in the area it is usually gone the next day before sunrise.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

Your right, Nature and the animals take care of theirselves pretty good. I always field dress deer away from my stand or hunting area if I plan to hunt this area more. Usually 500 yards or so. Most of the areas I hunt I can get my truck fairly close without have to drag the animal very far. I don't like to field dress near my stand because of the scent from the guts and from the predators that come in to cleanup. I've never seen a gut pile last more than two days due to the buzzards and coyotes. I process my own deer then take all the leftovers to the back of the farm for nature and the animals to take care of.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jig Stick</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i leave it where it lays. then i come back later and shoot at the coyotes eating it </div></div>

Same here.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: pyplynr</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Jig Stick</div><div class="ubbcode-body">i leave it where it lays. then i come back later and shoot at the coyotes eating it </div></div>

Same here. </div></div>

Ditto
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

Arizona can have some sparsely populated areas to hunt in terms of game and people, though overrun with hunters in season. I've seen it take three days for a coyote to find a gut pile, then come back the fourth day with family to take care of it. Dead cattle can get picked at in a couple of days but last a couple of weeks and bones a season. Ravens and vultures do bulk of the work on gut piles.

We leave guts where killed and haul everything else out. Eyeballs usually go to local kid who takes it to the science teacher and maybe a brain too. Larger bones get taken to the zoo as chew toys for the big cats. The hide is always skinned with care and if not asked for before hand, then rolled and frozen till someone's interested. Seems in our area a number of people would like to try their hand at tanning but are unlikely to take up hunting.

Any trimmings go to my very happy cat.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I dozed a pit on the south end of my property, about 75 yards from the fence. It's about a half mile from the house to the gut pile, so a quick trip in the Mule to dump the gut bucket. Good spot to snipe a pig after dark, sometimes a coyote or coon.

Next door neighbor had guests hunting a blind that is placed RIGHT ON the property line, and some of these guests.... well, I guess they got lost, because they kept hunting on our side of the fence for some reason.

Since I selected and emplaced the new pit for the gut pile, they don't seem to get lost very much anymore.... heck, they hardly hunt that blind very much anymore either....
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I always leave them in a ditch a good long ways from my stand. And preferably somewhere you can do 'overwatch' on your pile if possible. Never know when a yote might come along! But regardless of where you leave it the buzzards will clean it up fast.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I gut them in the woods away from my stand, and away from landowner dwellings/trails. mother nature takes good care of the buffet quickly.

I dropped a doe in the backyard a few weeks ago, left the gut pile 25 yards off the edge behind my wood pile. I'm in a very urban area, in a residential area with alot of long 100 to 200 yard wide, 1/2 mile long fingers of woods...we have a few racoons and some fox, and a shit ton of crows. that particular gut pile didn't last the night. it was knocked down to the stomach itself in one night, and the crows picked at that for a few days. I went back there tonight and you can't tell where it was.
 
Re: Where do you leave your guts and scraps?

I don't gut mine in the field. I always haul the deer up with a tractor, my RZR or whatever and gut and butcher them in good light. I put the guts in a bucket (one deers innards usually fits good in a 5 gallon if it isn't a huge deer) then the next day I take it and the foxpro out and have some fun with the coyotes.