howmany of you ever tried to rope a whitetail??

B

benny7mmWSM

New member
i just got this funny email story of a farmer that tried to rope a whitetail in hopes of cornfeeding it to harvest it. how many have tried to rope one of theese suckers, honestly can it be done?
 
Never tried it, but ANYTHING can be done. I'm sure it'd be easier to snare it but if you had a fast enough horse and could get the drop on 'em or maybe had a good place to hide with room to throw from. My in-laws put corn out for the deer right next to their horse pasture, so I'm sure the deer are pretty used to horses by now. Also they put it on the other side of the fence with some bushes and stuff on this side, so cover to hide behind. Now all I gotta do is learn how to lasso and not get caught by the in-laws!! :D
 
We don't need to rope 'em to corn feed them.....they help themselves to thousands of bushels every year in Iowa. :D We lost over 500 bushel in one 80 acre field alone....@ roughly $4 per bushel = $2000 gone.
 
I had a old man tell me about how they used to snare deer way back during the depression. There were very particular spots on this ravine where the deer would go down the hill if they were scared. The guys family would string up nooses on the trail and then chase deer toward them. If the deer got caught, they were going too fast downhill to stop and it would snap their necks and they'd be hanging there. So he said anyway.
 
Rope a Deer?
By Unknown
Mar 28, 2007 - 8:07:18 AM

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it 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 congregated 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) that 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, which had 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 received an education.

The first thing that Ilearned 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 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 originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many 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 to suffer a slow death. I managed to get it lined up to back in between my truck and the feeder, a little trap I had set beforehand. Kind of like a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and started moving forward, so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would I 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 hound 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 did not work. In the course of a millisecond, I devised a different strategy. I screamed like woman and
tried to turn and run. The reason I had always been told NOT 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 three times as evil, 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 doesn't 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.

Now for the local legend. I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty badly and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the co-op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like I'd just come from a brawl. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling "what happened!"

I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions as criminal. I swear, not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response. I told him, "I was attacked by a deer." I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it. The evidence of the attack was all over my body.

Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own.

He did.

Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking me and BIT me. It was obviously rabid or insane or something. EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the co-op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders. I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I have to see these people everyday, and as an outsider, a "city folk," I have enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and whispering "there's he ignoramus" that tried to rope the deer.
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This'n?
Brent
 
I've heard folks talk about brush-country cowboys who've roped deer. They say it's a really entertaining rodeo! The deer generally gets so tired out from fighting the rope that a couple of guys can hold it down and take the noose off.

Early Californio vaqueros used braided leather lariats as much as 60 and 70 feet long, compared to the more modern 40-footers. Working in pairs, they'd occasionally get optimistic and get two ropes on a grizzly. All well and good as long as it was two ropes; the bear would choke down. Bad news if one guy missed the throw.

Mexican cowboys are as wild on horseback as a Mexican busdriver on a mountain road. One of their games is to stand on a handkerchief with the end of the rope between their teeth. A horse is released from the chute, and they rope his front feet. Do it right and you keep your teeth. Step off the handkerchief, you lose. Do it wrong on the roping and you wind up with a gap-toothed smile.
 
I have read that story about roping a whitetail several times and even though I know how it ends, always laugh.

I have roped cattle, dogs, goats and even a goose once (It was not flying). The roping part is not hard to do, figuring out how to stop the critter once you have the rope on them is the problem, as well as retrieving your rope.


W_houle: I have always been told it was because you could not get them to back up to a stump. :eek: (Sorry, but he started it! :D)
 
Uncle Buck, around age ten I roped a young Hereford bull. I had my rope tied, not dallied. When he hit the end of the string, I discovered how rotten my cinch was. Envision "Launch!" and liftoff.

"Up high I turns over, and below I can see,
That danged hard caliche, just waiting for me..."

My grandfather thought it was funny...
 
Yesterday, 08:12 PM #6
hogdogs
Senior Member


Join Date: October 31, 2007
Location: Western Florida panhandle
Posts: 7,276 Quote:
Rope a Deer?
By Unknown
Mar 28, 2007 - 8:07:18 AM
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I remember that story when it came out the first time around but it was a pleasure to laugh at it again thanks HogDogs!
 
An ol' boy who worked for my dad roped a pronghorn once, and he was tyed off and couldn't let go. Well that old goat jumped and run and when he met the end of the rope he started going in circles, tying the cowboy to the horse and finally taking the horse down. Well when the dust cleared there was a pony, a prong horn and a cowboy all tied in a ball and the other hands had to get in there with there pocket knives to let 'em all loose. Luckely no one or animal was seriously injured. Not as good a story when I tell it but still entertaining.
 
Born and raised out west where cowhands still ply their trade on horseback. It seems every young hand had to rope a deer as a right of passage. I can think of at least 10 individuals that has roped a deer and one that roped a black bear.
 
When Junior first got decent with a lasso, we were out on a hog hunt and we were cutting thru a massive pasture complete with cattle.

He asked the feller we were with if he could jump in the back of the 'yota and rope a bull... He failed to note the sly cheshire grin me and the guy both got.

SUREEEEE Go on git big boy! Well ol' "G" drives right on up to a big ol' bull and junior gets a good throw but instead of horns, he got the whole neck. The bull takes off and junior wisely lets go rather than try to dally the rollbar which would have likely resulted in a rollover...

well the bull heads off into the bottoms in a hammock swamp. "G" says, crap, we gotta get that rope off that bull or he is gonna choke out or get us kicked off the place. We went and bought some apple corn and went back, after hiding in the truck for a few blistering hot hours the bull decided he wasn't gonna be the only bovine not eating out of the back of the truck.

With a a premade hook we were able to reach out the slider back glass and un do the rope loose enuff to lift it off... Junior only uses a horse now and only on little cattle!:D
Brent
 
saw this once

I got sent to a car deer MVA one time. As I pulled into the campground entrance and my headlights swept the guard shack and the two vehicles parked adjacent, a smallish whitetail doe jumped up, ran about 50 feet, hit the end of a rope tied about its neck, and crash landed in a pile right there. Darn thing was tied to the flag pole.

I get out, "what the blue blazes" says I, and begin to sort things through.
Turns out that one veh is two college babes who have struck the deer, driven to this point to report same. The second veh is two yocals (think Deliverance) who came upon the babes and deer on roadside. They caught the dazed deer, loaded it in their truck, , and followed the babes to the station. They then tied it off on the flag pole so it couldn't "get away".

"We want the deer, but knew we couldn't kill it. Can you give us permission to have it, and shoot the deer too?" say the Bubba's.

Now the critter has obviously regained its senses. I have witnessed it try to leave under its own power once, it seems more blown and exhausted from trying to escape, then broken down and crippled from the collision. Heck, if they'd not tied it up it would have already been gone!!!!!

"I can't shoot around this station and parking lot and these people" says I.
"Look, I'm a pretty good shot,....... get it pointed away from the buildings and people, cut it loose, and I'll shoot it before it reaches the wood line, away from everything".

So I position myself at an intercepting angle.

The Bubba's call out "You ready?" and I draw and nod.

They release the deer, and it blows past me and may still be running for all I know. I reholster and the look on their faces is beyond description.

"You didn't shoot!!!!!!!!"

"Looked pretty healthy to me"

They cussed all the way over to their truck and may still be cussing.
 
^^^THAT was freaking hilarious!!! LMAO!!


NOPE---can't say I've ever tried to rope a whitetale. But I HAVE tackled a muley doe.... AND, that was a reeeeeeally BAD idea! :D
 
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