Deer Roping
For all you cowboys out there... Actual letter from someone who 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 up side 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 that deer and me. 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 to 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
tendons 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.
************************************************** ***
Not me, not anyone I know.
--
Keith
OT: Deer Roping 
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