How to rope a deer...

[MrRee]

How to rope a deer...

by an anonymous Gentleman Rancher

I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall,
feed it up on corn for a several weeks, then kill it and eat it. The
first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that since
they congregated 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) that 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, who had 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 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 the 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 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
originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much
stamina as some animals.

A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk
me off my feet and drag me. 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, but I then managed to get up.

Right 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 evil 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 up to back 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 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 such trickery did 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 three 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.

Now for the local legend. I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split
open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good
and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was
bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had
protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place,
which was the co-op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust
and looking like ****. The guy who ran the place saw me through the
window and came running out yelling "Oh my God, What happened?"

Now, I have never seen any law in the state of Texas that would
prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I sus pect that this is an
area that they have overlooked entirely. Probably because they didn't
think anyone would be stupid enough to try. And knowing, as I do, the
lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their
power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist some existing
laws to paint my actions as criminal.

I swear....not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally
stupid played no part in my response. I told him "I was attacked by a
deer." I did not mention that at the time It had my rope on it. The
evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket
where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where
it had struck me. I asked him to call somebody to come get me...I didn't
think I could make it home on my own. So he did. Later that afternoon, a
game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer
attack.

Surprisingly, deer attacks a re a rare thing and Parks & Wildlife was
interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely
and accurately as I could - "Well, I was just filling the grain hopper
and this deer came out of nowhere and started kicking the **** out of me
and BIT me! It was obviously rabid or insane or something!" EVERYBODY
for miles around now knows about the deer attack (the guy at the co-op
has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids into the
house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles
when they filled their feeders.

I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I
have to see these people every day and as a relative outsider
("gentleman rancher/city folk" some say)...I have enough trouble fitting
in without them snickering behind my back and whispering "There's the
dumb-a** that tried to rope the deer!".

[Alboy]

Grand story, still laughing.

[Paul Hoskins]

MR, I've had a little experience in this field. Years ago while groundhog hunting, I came across a doe with both hind feet stuck between the top strand of barbwire and the top of the woven fence, leaving her more or less head downward with her front feet on the ground. She had pawed the ground bare in a semicircle with her front feet. Being the nice guy I am, I decided to just pick her front end up and dump her back over the fence. After parking my rifle, I proceded with the task. She immediately started pawing at me with her front feet. I tried sneaking up close to the fence beside her but that didn't work either. After fifteen minutes or so of this I finally realized that if she couldn't see me she couldn't paw me. I went back to the truck and got my jacket and threw it over her head and she calmed right down. I rubbed her and talked to her softly until she was relaxed and reached over and zipped the jacket up. Still talking to her and petting her I quickly grabbed her front legs and dumped her over the fence backwards. After a few minutes she got to her feet but ran into the fence again. I  crossed the fence and sneaked up on her again and jerked my jacket off her head and she ran off but somewhat wobbly. I could see she had blood on her belly from the barbwire but it didn't look like anything to worry about..............Paul H

[Alboy]

Nice save

[tex]

now the only thing sillier than that is the day i decided to ride a emu....
 
after jumping on the emu off the back of a bike at about 40km per hour and finding out that a emu can do a perfect 90 degree turn at full speed. i can certainlly say that getting dragged down a paddock at 25 miles per hour by a very upset bush chook that is trying to bite and trample you is not cool at all.
 
long story short i got free of the emu and it then tried to eat me as thanks. i then spent 2 days in the hospital, about 4 hours getting patched up and that night and the next day because the doctor was of the opion i was bloody mad....
 
no sence of adventure some folks ....

[MrRee]

Tex,  some people just won't try anything once will they !!
 
Heck,  how do you get to find out things are fun if you don't try them  ?
 
I wonder who was the first one to climb on a bull & try to ride it for 8 sec. ??
or how they came up with the 8 sec. after people got tossed on their butts for trying again ??
 
Wonder how long you could ride on a deers back ??  I bet they do more than buck! lol :)

[SuperMimi]

This is hilarious! Thanks guys! You surely started my day with a good laugh. I can see that this is really a forum for the guys. Now MrRee (or Mystery--and there's little left now :-)), you make mention of screaming like a woman or crying like a little girl. The only thing that is wrong with that picture is -- first, no woman would have tried to rope a deer with a rope around her waist. No! That just wouldn't happen. They would rope the deer (if they had any interest in roping the deer, in the first place), and tie the other of the end to something considerably more immovable -- which, I imagine wouldn't do any good either. Good for the deer. Second -- IF a woman should find herself in that situation (which I can't imagine happening), she would not be screaming. She would be trying to contemplate how to get out of the situation alive because she still had a family to take care of. I really don't know that many women who scream unless they are just trying to get the attention of a man. And, the little girl? She might be crying, but since she wouldn't be in that situation to begin with, it's hard to imagine what she would do.

And Tex! Riding an emu! That is so hilarious. Unfortunately, I can see myself deciding to do something like that.  I would probably wait until it was standing still and I had something to slowly lower myself onto it's back so I could quickly remove myself when it took off.

We had an emu just show up on our property several years ago, and she was a sweetheart. She just followed us around and watched in the kitchen window while we were cooking. We loved her and hated it when she had to leave. I might have tried to ride her if I had thought about it. But I'm sure my hubby would have dissuaded me very quickly and menacingly.

This is just the greatest post ever. I have done too many stupid things to even begin, so I'm not laughing at you. I laughing with you (I hope).

Thanks for giving my day a great start!

[tex]

i like emu's better than the native teddy bear...
 
that story is long and painfull..
 
why is it our native animals want to eat me or hurt me badlly????
 
come to australia where everything tries to kill you~!

[lcrawford]

I read that "confession" of a mad man somewhere before, and it is just as funny the second time around as it was the first time I saw it!
One funny, potentially lethal  incident cooked up by my son and his nitwit school chum that thought he was another "crocodile Dundee" was the time they caught and bagged snakes only to turn them loose at the foot of the carport steps while the friends mother (of the Pentacostal faith, no doubt) screamed at the top of her lungs how they were going to go straight to **** for turning those snakes loose as she danced a good Irish Jig!!!!    BOYS!!!!

[kombi1976]

Tex, I never knew you had a special ride on an emu.
The doctor was right......you are cracked!
But the guy with the deer; I mean the thing is a wild animal and a deer will clear a fence without even thinking about it.
That has dumb written all over it although I can see the attraction.

[tex]

bwhahahahhahaaaaa kombi next time we deer shooting i'll bring the rope you bring the 1st aid kit....

[12 gauge]

Lol, I read this story before...
 
I guess out of instinct to survive a deer will bite you pretty bad, but I never would have guessed they would lock on like a pit bull and shake. About the only teeth they have that can do that damage is their molars.
 
If a deer locked onto my arm or any other part of my body, I would use my free hand or free limb and punch it right in the head.
 
I wouldn't doubt a deer would paw at you, i've seen it on you tube with a hunter being attacked...
 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6640613910257023563&q=deer+attack+hunter&total=62&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
 
But still the morale of the story is, if it is wild, leave it alone! If you are hunting and have a weapon, use it! Don't try to pull off an idiotic stunt that could leave your life at stake..
 
Still a funny story nonetheless!! :laugh: