Calling All Deer Hunters

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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

likely 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

t ry 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.