I had this idea that I could 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. 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 slide off to 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.
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......to sort of even the odds!!
All these events are true so help me God... An Educated Farmer
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