Roping a Deer

SomeGuy

Hero Member
Jun 26, 2005
510
6
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 we ll 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 real ize 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 s everal 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 diffe rent 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.
 

Gypsy Heart

Gold Member
Nov 29, 2005
12,686
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Ozarks
ROFL


In my younger days ,there was a certain father who in order to put meat on the table for his growing family would have daughter drive old rickety pickup down the road at night and father would ride in back of truck . Un -named daughter would shine light into the field and father would shoot deer. Rule was if daughter saw another vehicle coming she would speed up while father rolled off and walked through the field back to farm.....this worked well...or so I have been told ::) until one night,directly after shooting ,another vehicle started coming, daughter speeded up, father rolled off truck only to catch back of belt on a loose piece of metal on truck ...daughter has no clue, oncoming vehicle getting closer, daughter goes a little faster....father is sidestepping as fast as he can and at this point swearing....daughter has turned up aerosmith loudly on raidio in an attempt to act normal in case its a warden.....daughter drives 1 mile home dragging father....a really pi$$ed off father .....or so I have heard
 

Cynangyl

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Apr 12, 2007
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I am not sure if the roping the deer story was the funniest or the one about un-named daughter dragging dad home during a spotlighting escapade! :sign10: Somehow I could picture either one happening in our family!
 

arkhunter

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Jun 12, 2006
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Gypsy Chick said:
ROFL


In my younger days ,there was a certain father who in order to put meat on the table for his growing family would have daughter drive old rickety pickup down the road at night and father would ride in back of truck . Un -named daughter would shine light into the field and father would shoot deer. Rule was if daughter saw another vehicle coming she would speed up while father rolled off and walked through the field back to farm.....this worked well...or so I have been told ::) until one night,directly after shooting ,another vehicle started coming, daughter speeded up, father rolled off truck only to catch back of belt on a loose piece of metal on truck ...daughter has no clue, oncoming vehicle getting closer, daughter goes a little faster....father is sidestepping as fast as he can and at this point swearing....daughter has turned up aerosmith loudly on raidio in an attempt to act normal in case its a warden.....daughter drives 1 mile home dragging father....a really pi$$ed off father .....or so I have heard

gypsy......if only we could contact said daughter for more info........oh well..we may never know.....lol
 

Old_Okie

Sr. Member
Jun 14, 2007
258
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This is one of the funniest things I've ever seen! My wife read it and was laughing so hard she couldn't breathe.

Having once roped a cow from the back of a pickup & promptly gone flying through the air myself, I can relate.

Old_Okie
 

budpon

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Oct 3, 2006
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I can certainly verify how tough these little devils can be. Back in the '50's, I was stationed at a remote Air Force radar site in Washington by the Canadian border. In the morning, we took a truck to the top of the mountain and came down late in the afternoon. Snow had been plowed about 6 feet high on each side of the road. One afternoon we were coming down and there was a young deer trying to get up the snowbank and out of the road. Like a damn fool, I stepped out on the running board to attempt to bulldog it. Probably weighed about 85 pounds (deer). I had on large parka, heavy pants, boots, etc. Well, to my regret, I did bulldog it. I dove on it like a real cowboy. That damnm deer turned me every way but loose. Those sharp hooves ripped the parka to shreds, tore up my pants and my shins were a bloody mess. The worst part of it was that we were in about 2 feet of loose powder snow. Neither of us could get loose from the other. One minute, I was on top. The next minute, he was on top. The last I saw of him, he was walking calmly up the road as if nothing happened. Took five minutes to get my buddies to stop laughing long enough to get back in the truck. Even sadder, I had to pay for the damn parka. Never again!
 

Cynangyl

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OUCHIE!! of course the laughing buddies did nothing to stop the worst sting I am sure! :wink:
 

Wicked Wanda

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Feb 29, 2008
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budpon said:
I can certainly verify how tough these little devils can be. Back in the '50's, I was stationed at a remote Air Force radar site in Washington by the Canadian border. In the morning, we took a truck to the top of the mountain and came down late in the afternoon. Snow had been plowed about 6 feet high on each side of the road. One afternoon we were coming down and there was a young deer trying to get up the snowbank and out of the road. Like a damn fool, I stepped out on the running board to attempt to bulldog it. Probably weighed about 85 pounds (deer). I had on large parka, heavy pants, boots, etc. Well, to my regret, I did bulldog it. I dove on it like a real cowboy. That damnm deer turned me every way but loose. Those sharp hooves ripped the parka to shreds, tore up my pants and my shins were a bloody mess. The worst part of it was that we were in about 2 feet of loose powder snow. Neither of us could get loose from the other. One minute, I was on top. The next minute, he was on top. The last I saw of him, he was walking calmly up the road as if nothing happened. Took five minutes to get my buddies to stop laughing long enough to get back in the truck. Even sadder, I had to pay for the damn parka. Never again!
Now that is funny there......I don't care who you are.....that's funny.! :tongue3:
 

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