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 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 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 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 many 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 it 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 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 obviously such
trickery would not work. In the course of a millisecond I devised a
different strategy. I screamed like 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 hell. The guy
who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling
"what happened?"
I have never seen any law in the state of Kansas that would prohibit an
individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they
have overlooked entirely. 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 the 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 I had a 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 there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't
think I could make it home on my own. He did. Later that afternoon, a game
warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack.
Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was
interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and
accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came
out of nowhere and just started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me. It was
oviously rabid or insane or something.
EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the
co-op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in 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 an
outsider - a "city folk". I have enough trouble fitting in without them
snickering behind my back and whispering "there is the dumbass that tried
to rope the deer
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Topic: Roping a deer.. (Read 5652 times)