Rocinante
Registered User
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2009
- Messages
- 1,221
This is not my story, but A great and entertaining read.
ROPING A DEER
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 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 trucknot 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 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. 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 ahorse. 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...
Sincerely,
Bob Spencer
Milan, Illinois
ROPING A DEER
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 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 trucknot 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 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. 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 ahorse. 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...
Sincerely,
Bob Spencer
Milan, Illinois
