Roping a Deer

[benos]

An old friend, who now lives in Texas, sent me this...

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 g 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 w as not nearly as good an idea as I had originally imagined.

The only up side 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 n 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.

[outerlimits]

:lol:

always enjoyed shooting them

[AlamoShooter]

What Forum do I have to go to get the.....Dears side of the Story?

[Chris Keen]

PETA

That was great Brian. I havent laughed so hard in months.

[jhgtyre]

[JKSNIPER]

Now THATS comedy!

JK

[-JQ-]

thanks I needed that!

Poor deer...he's probably still telling that story down by the creek

[z40acp]

PETA.....People Eating Tasty Animals

[Holshot]

Was dry...now wet.

[Bwana Six-Gun]

Does this not fall into the category that you started of "Things You Only Do Once?"

[Dustdevil21]

Things I hate "Deer on a Rope"

Sounds like a Pat McManus story.

That's too funny right there!

[ChrisStock]

Does this not fall into the category that you started of "Things You Only Do Once?"

If you live to tell a story like this, I guarantee it falls into that category.

Sounds like a Pat McManus story.

Yes, little things like this that I would read before taking a seat in the barber's chair. I could hardly contain myself, and it was a wonder I didn't end up with cuts all over my scalp.

[JKSNIPER]

My partner Bob and I , on patrol in our ESU truck, Bob has 28 years in ESU I have 18 years.

We responded to a call of a deer stuck in a swingset.

We get there and the Pct Sgt has his guys there but they obviously don't know what to do about this.

A HUGE buck has its antlers stuck in a childs swingset.

Hes stomped the ground to mush underneath, and hes frothing at the mouth (no not rabies...hes exhausted).

We're thinking of darting this deer when we find out 2 important things:

1. This deer is the community's pet deer.

People feed it from their hands and they all have watched it grow from a baby to the huge buck we now see before us.

2. This house where the deer is stuck belongs to the local animal rights activist who happens also to be very close to the mayor of the village where we are now.

We would normally dart the deer without to much concern.

The deer sometimes die from this. Hey its not an exact science.

Not like we can ask the deer "Hey buddy...how much do you weigh?" before we measure out the meds for the dart.

and the wild animals seem to fight like crazy and then crash. So the meds probably make the crash worse and they crash down into heart attack land or something like it.

Anyway if we dart it theres a good chance Bambi will be dead. So darting is out.

WE stand there trying to figure something out that will not result in getting stomped into the mush and will not hurt/kill the deer.

My partner finally decides to try and distract the deer and rope its antlers by moving up close to it from behind a tree right next to the swingset while I will attempt to cut the chains of the swingset with our bolt cutters.

A plan. A best laid plan of mice and men.

So Bob does his best "Hey deery deery come over here and pay no attention to the guy with the bolt cutters that sneakin up behind you in his gore tex raincoat (it was raining).

It was working ....sort of....the deer was distracted and then...he wasn't.

Bob attempts to rope the antlers.

The deer starts freaking out.

He rears up and turns his head and somehow hes magically free of the swingset...while I'm standing right next to him.

Thank God all he wanted to do was boggie on out of there. He moves out and I see the Pct Sgt with a Benelli shotgun on the other side of the deer pointing the shotgun at the deer and I think "Great....I'm about to be shot by this guy for trying to save a deer." The deer bounds away into the brush.

I look at the Sgt like "WTF?" and he says "I wasn't going to shoot it. I was just using it to push him away."

OK.

I say to my partner back in the truck "First thing we do at any scene we respond to now is disarm the pct guys or at least make them holster/put away their weapons." My partner says he thinks the only reason that I'm still here is :

A. The shotgun may not have had a round in the chamber

B. THe safety was probably on.

Fun with animals.

Thank God it wasn't a tiger.

JK

[Graham Smith]

I was living in Texas in the early 70's when the term "goat roper" was being used to describe what later became know as "urban cowboys". In fact, goat roping was sometimes used to teach new cowhands how to rope as goats are easier to handle than cattle. HOWEVER!!! Goats can be VERY aggressive when they they are cornered. They can butt, kick and bite the crud out of you, and they are fast and can corner a lot quicker than the average cowboy. This is likely the origin of the Army slang term "a real goat rope" (been to a few of those, I can tell you).

It now appears that "a real deer rope" qualifies to replace this old phrase.

[XD Niner]

It took me about ten minutes to read the original post. I was laughing so hard that my eyes kept tearing up and I couldn't see.

[R112mercer]

You could just do what I do and feed 'em by hand:You can't see his rack in this picture but he's got a nice rack of four. Let's me pet 'em now, too!

[R112mercer]

Here's a good pic of his rack. It's big enough to scare the bejesus out of the cat!

[Jeff686]

http://www.snopes.com/critters/farce/ropedeer.asp

[Bwana Six-Gun]

Factual or fiction (i.e. dressed up a bit) it is still a good story.

[Modoc]

You know,...................

As I read this, I was trying to think about which of my relatives or friends was the one to try it.

In his situation, the best bet would be to wait for deer season and just walk up the vennison and zap it from close range. Of course, like the SASS saying, "There is NO target too big, or too close that you can't miss it"

[Bird_Dog0347]

That was some of the funniest stuff I have ever read. I was crying at work, people thought something was wrong with me.

[John2A]

Truth or fiction I snorted so loud that I got a lot of looks here in cube world.

Love it thanks for sharing Brian.

[JimmyZip]

"cleaverly arrested the deers momentum" That's the one that gets me good! I will think of that for a long time I assure you. Thanks, JZ

[betterment]

I took a step towards it...it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope and then received an education.

That stopped me in my tracks for atleast a minute