Why we shoot Deer... Too Funny! You'll laugh your tail Off

[blacksky]

A letter from someone who wants to remain anonymous, who farms, writes well and actually tried this

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

[hoffbill]

Makes you wonder why people squander thousands to go to Africa and hunt cape buffalo.

[Mausermolt]

i have a picture of my mother roping a Bull elk back in the 80's....she was horseback though. great story

[Fullboar]

Great story, I remember reading it a couple of years ago!!!

[IsaacCarlson]

Deer can be very viscous. I had a pet deer in high school and it was sweet because it grew up in/around the house. Her mama was shot by a poacher so we looked after her. She eventually had twins and then was hit by a car. The twins are wild.

[blacksky]

Mausermolt post it please... Would love to see it! :d

[jimbob86]

D'ya suppose he looked like this guy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=BJbf81A5ajY

[Dave R]

Thanks for letting us have a great laugh at your expense. Well written!

[stu925]

Thank you for posting that, my wife now thinks I'm a moron because I've been sitting in here laughing at the computer for 10 minutes. Glad you survived the ordeal.

Stu

[silvrjeepr]

I honestly needed that laugh today. Thanks for the post. Now I'm going to be laughing the rest of the week. Lol

[Uncle Malice]

This was an awesome read. I'm not sure if it was intended to be hilarious... or if I'm just that sick.. but like silvrjeepr, I laughed quite a lot and will be sharing this.

[Mausermolt]

blacksky: ill see if i can find it. may post it on another thread

[homesick]

Read that in deer camp this past fall what a hoot

[mr.t7024]

I am at a loss for words! Cliff

[5RWill]

I never would've thought it had that much strength I mean a hefty young steer is pretty damn strong (we have cattle also). Good read, it was comical although at the same time i was wondering how bad all of those injuries would hurt.

Cows don't have much neck strength IIRC correctly dad always told me if one of the heifers charged me to grab her nose and twist her head as hard as I could she would quit. My cows are about like the deer described. We feed every day or when i'm home at least i help dad and they come right up to you. I've had one push me out of the way when pouring sweet feed, guess i wasn't going fast enough haha.

[jimbob86]

I seem to be having trouble posting.....

[jimbob86]

[jimbob86]

I never would've thought it had that much strength

I don't doubt it one bit- I watched my G'pa get thrown through the air like a rag doll when he latched onto mule deer's antler to cut it's throat.... he thought it dead, but the deer did not agree with him on the fact: the deer had a broken back, but with just the strength of just the front third of it's body, it flipped a 130ish pound man completely over him ....G'pa went from standin' on one side of this deer to landing on his head and shoulders 4' on the other side of it, and rolled on down into a draw like a lost hubcap ..... I learned a few new words and phrases that morning, though none usefull, as they would earn a mouthfull of Lava soap if I had repeated them......

[OEF-Vet]

You sure have a way of telling a story. I laughed my a$$ off and had to stop a couple a times while reading it to my wife to catch my breath.

[shortwave]

I too, remember reading this on a thread here on TFL a few years back.

Just as funny today.

If I recall, I posted of a friend of mine that doused himself up fairly well with some deer attractant before falling asleep against the base of a tree. Woke up to a very small doe sniffing his boots and decided to reach out and grab her.

Even though he tried to turn her loose, she continued to 'clog dance' on his body. Stomping/cutting his arms, legs and side of his face. He didn't have enough hands to cover every place she struck him. When she got done,she just looked at him as if to say "take that" and walked off.

His brother and I tease him to this day...only when we get the chance.

The last time I teased him was while we were getting ready to go hunting and one of those 'Jack Links Jerky' commercials came on TV. The one's about 'Messing with sasquatch'.

I told him to rub some "Jack Links Jerky" on his boots and maybe he could get hold of a saquatch.

[musher]

that was one of lawdogs stories wasn't it?

[Art Eatman]

jimbob86, there is some sort of intermittent glitch in the software that's causing no-text posts. The boffins are working on it.

[shortwave]

that was one of lawdogs stories wasn't it.

Can't remember.... but it's a classic.

[Mausermolt]

posted the pic of the elk roping in another thread blacksky enjoy

[ngragg]

Just imagining that as I read it about brought me to tears. I love it, wish I had that on video.