Roping a deer(long story,but funny)

"Sparky"

Roping A Deer

---

( Names have been removed to protect the Stupid! )

Actual letter from someone who farms and writes well!

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 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, 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.

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.

FlaPoolman

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
loved it

vidalia1

True or not that may be one of the funniest things I ever read...and believe me...somebody out there has tried this.... :P

Capt Frank

That is a classic, loved it! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

ranger ray

that is truly a classic story! you made my day..... some day i'll share one of my own.....ranger ray ( retired park ranger)

ranger ray

oh.... ps.... hopefully you have a ..22 cal pistol./ rifle.... get a box of ( very important) sub sonic rounds..... and look up how to make a silencer from ordinary hardware items....( very easy).... nuff said ... just in case the feds read this site( i;m sure they do.... not on business but just for fun as fellow eggers). : ....... ranger ray\

Beaker

OMG that was halarious. My neighbors probably think they need to call the wagon cause I was laughing so hard...and so long...Craigslist rant n raves have some good ones...this is definitely a good one...

Mr Holloway

Great story :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Very well written

Hillbilly-Hightech

wow - it'd been a looooong time since I'd "laughed out loud" over something I'd seen written on the internet, but this made me laugh & laugh & laugh!!

His style of storytelling reminds me of a nature humorist I used to read named Patrick F. McManus. Dunno if he's still around & still writing, but he had a series of books long ago that had stories in them like that.

At any rate, yes, deer can be vicious animals - when I tried to explain this to my GF whom I met in CA (she'd never been hunting or never been around wildlife much), she found it hard to believe.

But with me growing up in Wild Wonderful West "By God" Virginia, I've had my fair share of deer hunting experiences.

I do recall once seeing a deer hit by the car ahead of me. The car kept going, but I stopped to see what I could do. It had been hit broadside, and sustained massive injuries to it's hind quarters, mangling both rear legs. As it lay there dying & in pain, it looked so sad, so I decided to put it out of it's misery. I got a knife that I had in my car, and was going to slit it's throat.

Well, it still had enough life left in it that it scooted itself with it's 2 good front legs to the edge of the road & had flung itself over the berm - mind you, this is mountainous WV, so the edge of the road is a cliff. So now the deer is tumbling down a 20' embankment, but it's still alive.

So, I decide to carry on with my mission, so I have to trudge down the cliff as well. Once I finally get there, the deer is still not wanting me to walk up to it, so it's kicking with it's front legs & "pawing" at me like the guy explained. I finally had to step on it's front legs & stand there holding it's neck & head w/ one hand while using the knife with the other.

It wasn't a pretty sight, I had blood all over me, but I had put it out of it's misery.

Funny thing though, as I finally made it back up to the road, I met a guy who lived nearby standing along the road. He had gotten his shotgun & was gonna put the deer out of it's misery as well, except his intent was to take the deer & skin it & eat it.

He asked me when I got back up to the road if I was gonna take the deer, and I said "well, no, that wasn't my intent & even if I wanted to, there's no way to get the deer back up the hill anyway."

So he said "OK" and told me that he was gonna to back to his house & get his truck which had a winch & winch it back to the roadside.

I didn't stick around, but I'm pretty sure he succeeded

Mickey

Wow, very good.
Thank you for posting it.

PhilsGrill

Yes. Deer aren't called wild animals for nothing.