[SSSQ]

When I field dress a deer do I leave the guts in the woods or do I have to take it all with me and dispose of it somehow?

I'll be hunting on a WMA

What about squirrels? Can I skin them out in the woods and just bring the meat back with me?

[sumpnz]

You'd have to look into the regulations for your state and the specific area you're hunting, but I have never heard of anyone being required to haul out the gut pile. I've always left mine at the kill site.

Squirrels/rabbits I'd wait to skin until I got back to the truck just because I want to keep the meat clean. But I still leave the stuff I don't want to eat in the field.

Coyotes and buzzards have to eat too. :)

[Daveboone]

I have never heard of a situation where you were required to bring the goodies out...
It is good manners in any situation to move the gut pile to a brushpile, handy gopher hole, or in some way cover them so as not to offend landowners or who ever.
Personally, I hate skinning an gutting cold critters...just knarly. I prefer to skin and gut small game on the spot, or shortly after. It also allows it to cool quicker. I carry a couple of ziplocks, breadbags, or something similar to put them in to keep em clean.

[exbiologist]

You required by all regulations written or not to take a bite out your choice of either fresh heart or liver from your first kill, only after that are you allowed to leave the rest of the guts.

[mptrimshop]

^^^^^ true story^^^^^

[MCgunner]

I dump 'em in the woods where I shoot it, but then, I own the damned place. I pay taxes on it. I'll do what I please. :D Coyotes and bobcats clean it up post haste, don't worry about that. I mean, they gotta eat, too, ya know.

[wyohome]

Gut piles here are totally gone (except the diaphragm) within 24 hours. Birds get most of it.

[sumpnz]

Birds get most of it.
This past November during the late season blacktail hunt I got to watch a hawk work on a gut pile for at least a couple hours. I'm half surprised the thing could fly off after eating that much. I was hunting a cleared utility right of way so I could see for a few hundred yards. Gut looked to have been from that morning.

[Grizfire]

Leave the guts in the woods.

[Mauserguy]

"Birds get most of it."

That got us in trouble out here in California. Supposedly the endangered buzzard known as the California Condor was eating lead bullets and getting sick. From what I've read the science behind that assertion is politically charged and questionable, but nevertheless, it got us California hunters in a heap of trouble.
Mauserguy

[kanook]

You required by all regulations written or not to take a bite out your choice of either fresh heart or liver from your first kill, only after that are you allowed to leave the rest of the guts.What do ya mean "first"? I've been doing it to all of them.

[exbiologist]

Well, it's optional after your first, clearly in stated in Man Law, Chapter 4, verse 7:
"Thou shalt, upon slaying thine first beast, bite from fresh liver or heart immediately upon harvest, and under the eye of thine elders. The elders, once satisfied that the bite is large enough to satisfy, grant permission to the new hunter option to either leave or retrieve entrails upon future kills."
See, it's right there. Your elders must not have granted you permission to leave guts yet.

[kgbowhunt]

lol, thats awsome... nice ex

[kgbowhunt]

Sence deer hunting here in So. Cal. don't open till later in the year, been doing other things that pertain to hunting, calling coyotes, looking for hogs etc... anyway, I set out my trail cam, and wow, I found them. Thing is, there not where I wish they were in order to try and take. There only movin at night and this one sow is pushing 300lbs, what would you?