LMAO!!!!!
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
slowly 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 beforehand ...
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 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 lying 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.
Disclaimer:
This story isn't about me
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