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Any one notice this?

Over the years I have notice when field dressing a buck I have seen where another buck will come into the gut pile (if any is left from over night) and sniff it out. Several years ago I killed an 8pt and the gonads on the buck where the size of softballs, the next morning my son was setup just down from where I field dress it and he dropped one big body buck sniffing where the gut pile was at. Witness this several times over the years, always figure with the yotes, wolves and other scavengers it would be distracting but figure it must be the gonads and glands that is attractive. I hunt the upper north of Mn. and the gut piles are cleaned up with in a few hrs.

Has anyone notice the similar behavior?

Yep!

I too have had bucks come into gut piles from the day before. I thought they were just curious & wanted to check out the smell. I'm in WI and hunt southern part of the state.

They seem to be curious about any unusual scent.

I’ve put trail cams on carcasses before, but just get pics of foxes and buzzards. Guess their gonads weren’t large enough.

Yup I put a cam on a gutpile to get ready for predators after deer season and got a buck on the camera with its face in it. That is why I laugh when people talk about removing guts to hunt a stand again or if you shoot a deer then the stand is ruined after that. Nah

I've had both bucks and does check out gut piles. Had a camera on one and ended up getting video of a doe licking the gut pile of another doe shot during the gun season in northeast WI.

We put cameras on dead critters all the time. Deer are very common visitors

I use partially buried carcasses for predator trapping. The first visitors are always deer.

I have seen a lot of deer around gut piles . On a similar subject urine doesn't seem to bother them at all. I have come to believe scent is less of a concern than we all think. One old farmer I hunted with got his deer every year and I could smell him coming from over one hundred yards. I am sure the deer noticed but were not concerned.

Green mountain- if you want to consistently kill mature bucks up close with a bow you better be concerned about human scent. I know a few guys that kill mature bucks every year and all of em are very human scent conscious.

I know of one case where scrapes were pawed out around a gut pile.

I’ve had deer sniff a dead deer, but never a gutpile. I do gut my deer away from where I hunt but only because I don’t want to attract coyotes or hogs any more than I have to. The strangest thing (to me) that I’ve seen in this vein it seeing three deer, a mother and twins, sniff a dead coyote that I had killed about 15 minutes earlier. I would have bet money that they would have avoided that, but they all passed right by it, and the buck fawn walked right up and sniffed it. The doe fawn and the adult sniffed it from 15/20 feet away, but all three then grazed across my food plot with not another look.

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