Roping A Deer
Names have been removed to protect the stupid!
Actual Letter from someone who writes, and farms.
I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall,
feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it.
The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that,
since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have
much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come
right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I am in the back of the
truck not 4 feet away), it should not be difficult to rope one, get
up to it and toss a bag over its head (to calm it down) then hog tie
it and transport it home.
I filled the cattle feeder then hid down at the end with my rope.
The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well back.
They were not having any of it.
After about 20 minutes, my deer showed up — 3 of them. I picked out a
lively looking one, stepped out from the end of the feeder, and threw
my rope. The deer just stood there and stared at me.
I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end so I would
have a good hold. The deer still just stood and stared at me, but you
could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.
I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little
tension on the rope and then received an education.
The first thing that I learned is that, while a deer may just stand
there looking at you funny while you rope it, they are spurred to
action when you start pulling on that rope.
That deer EXPLODED.
The second thing I learned is that pound for pound, a deer is a LOT
stronger than a cow or a colt. A cow or a colt in that weight range I
could fight down with a rope and with some dignity.
A deer— no chance.
That thing ran and bucked and twisted and pulled. There was no
controlling it and certainly no getting close to it. As it jerked me
off my feet and started dragging me across the ground, it occurred to
me that having a deer on a rope was not nearly as good an idea as I
had originally imagined.
The only upside is that they do not have as much stamina as many
other animals.
A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to
jerk me off my feet and drag me when I managed to get up. It took me
a few minutes to realize this, since I was mostly blinded by the
blood flowing out of the big gash in my head. At that point, I had
lost my taste for corn-fed venison. I just wanted to get that devil
creature off the end of that rope.
I figured if I just let it go with the rope hanging around its neck,
it would likely die slow and painfully somewhere.
At the time, there was no love at all between me and that deer. At
that moment, I hated the thing, and I would venture a guess that the
feeling was mutual.
Despite the gash in my head and the several large knots where I had
cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against
various large rocks as it dragged me across the ground, I could still
think clearly enough to recognize that there was a small chance that
I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were
in, so I didn’t want the deer to have it suffer a slow death, so I
managed to get it lined back up in between my truck and the feeder -
a little trap I had set before hand...kind of like a squeeze chute.
I got it to back in there and I started moving up so I could get my
rope back.
Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years
would have thought that a deer would bite somebody, so I was very
surprised when I reached up there to grab that rope and the deer
grabbed hold of my wrist.
Now, when a deer bites you, it is not like being bit by a horse where
they just bite you and then let go. A deer bites you and shakes its
head —almost like a pit bull. They bite HARD and it hurts.
The proper thing to do when a deer bites you is probably to freeze
and draw back slowly. I tried screaming and shaking instead. My
method was ineffective.
It seems like the deer was biting and shaking for several
minutes, but it was likely only several seconds.
I, being smarter than a deer (though you may be questioning that
claim by now) tricked it. While I kept it busy tearing the bejesus
out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that
rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior for
the day.
Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up on
their back feet and strike right about head and shoulder level, and
their hooves are surprisingly sharp.
I learned a long time ago that, when an animal — like a horse —
strikes at you with their hooves and you can’t get away easily, the
best thing to do is try to make a loud noise and make an aggressive
move towards the animal. This will usually cause them to back down a
bit so you can escape.
This was not a horse. This was a deer, so obviously, such
trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a
different strategy.
I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.
The reason I had always been told NOT to try to turn and run from a
horse that paws at you is that there is a good chance that it will
hit you in the back of the head.
Deer may not be so different from horses after all, besides being
twice as strong and 3 times as evil, because the second I turned to
run, it hit me right in the back of the head and knocked me down.
Now, when a deer paws at you and knocks you down, it does not
immediately leave. I suspect it does not recognize that the danger
has passed. What they do instead is paw your back and jump up and
down on you while you are laying there crying like a little girl
and covering your head.
I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away.
So now I know why when people go deer hunting they bring a rifle with
a scope so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey.
