Deers'n'traps

[Art Eatman]

MCgunner's story of the deer in his hog trap reminded me:

Years back at deer camp, a ranch hand came in and reported of a "big deer" caught in a coyote snare. A buddy and I took off to go see this "grande vena'o" -- "big deer".

It was a little yearling forkhorn. He'd tried to crawl under a "tunnel" spot in a net-wire fence, and had an antler caught in the snare. (A braided steel wire, which locks up like a nylon tie-wrap.)

So, fertile minds being what they are, we hog-tied his feet and freed him from the snare. Carried him back to the truck and then back to camp.

"Well, did you find the deer? Where is he?"

Freeing his feet and sorta goosing him in the direction of the group of hunters, I said, "Right here!"

Amazing how a sixty-pound deer can make a half-dozen 200-pound men scatter like quail...

 

[MCgunner]

ROFL. I have a snare story. When I was in College I was a member of the "Wildlife Biology Association" at Texas A&M. Our club president at the time was Andy Briscoe. Now, Andy's dad and uncle Dolph (the governor) had a huge ranch near Presidio, Texas, middle of the desert on the Rio Grande. We had a Christmas field trip out there, a bunch of us, Andy chaperoning the group. They had an old milsurp Dodge power wagon to get around the place on and Andy and their ranch foreman, a Mexican fellow who spoke decent English, took us off into the low mountains on a road to see a cave with native American cave art in it and hopefully some bats or whatever, you know how these nature freaks are. So, on the road up, there's this black vulture in a coyote snare. Now, I know this poor Mexican fellow, if he were alone, woulda shot that buzzard and tossed it out of the snare, but he had a buncha tree huggers in the truck with him, so he gets out to wrestle this thing and it starts throwing up on him and all over the place. EEEEEWWWWW. Well, on the way back, Andy got in the back of the truck with us and let the fellow drive by himself. He stunk pretty bad. I felt sorry for him. If we hadn't been there, he'd not had such a bad time. Almost made me puke watching it.

 

[MtnCreek]

That would have been great to see! I have a few yotes traps out right now. Remind me to Not call you if I catch a bobcat in one of them...

 

[chas08]

LOL! I would have loved to watch both stories as they happened!

 

[Kingcreek]

An old friend of mine now deceased was an avid outdoorsman and an avid drinker of spirits for part of his life, and he never let one interfere with the other.
One day while fishing in a Jon boat he saw a nice 10 point whitetail swimming across the canal. He was in a wide part of the waterway and had the idea of roping the buck with the anchor rope and wearing it out. He admits his strategy was laced with booze. He got along side the buck and got a loop on him. The buck was a motivated swimmer and made it close enough to the bank to get some footing, swamped the boat and dam near drowned the guy before he managed to cut the rope. He said that was his first and last deer rodeo.

 

[Patocazador]

I saw a photograph of 2 cowboys who roped an elk (head & heel) that was stranded on glare ice in Eastern Wyoming. The guy showing the picture said he didn't know how they got the ropes off when they got it to solid dirt.
It didn't have any antlers as it was the middle of winter.

 

[Art Eatman]

Odds are that the elk was too wind-blown to cause much of a problem.

You just sorta throw a curl in the rope, and it loosens the noose.

The head, a bit of a problem, but less so with a winded animal. No horns? Just keep dallying up until your horse is close enough for you to grab the neck loop. I guess keep the heel rope tight until that's done.