Posted on 10/20/2016 5:53:43 AM PDT by w1n1
You've heard it before: you should never gut a deer near your treestand. At least, that is a popular theory. As the saying goes, if you gut a deer near your stand, it will scare all the deer that frequent the area away. However, are there any facts to back up this claim, or debunks it?
Well, yes. Here's what was found.
After quite a bit of research into this topic, I was able to find this study done by Dr. James C. Kroll, who replicated gut piles all over the woods and placed trail cams right on top of the piles. Two kinds of animals were always the first to show up to the pile within hours of its placement: shockingly, deer and crows. Some deer even licked the gut piles, but at the very least, they were heavily investigated. Deer did not respond negatively at all.
Watch the video to see this exact evidence. Deer and crows are right there to check it out. See it here.
We have big cats, black bears and skunks in the area where I hunt. I have no wish for any of them to be hanging around my stand.
There are areas in Alaska where deer hunting rifle shots alert the largest brown bears to look for guts and better yet deer carcass. Hunters often abandon deer when the bears arrive.
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