Roping a deer!

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Milkmaster

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Roping A Deer...Names have been removed to protect the stupid! Actual
Letter from someone who writes, and farms.

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 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 LO T
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 wit h 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 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 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 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 so that they can be somewhat equal to the Prey.
 
I would relate the story of a not so young man I know attempting to rope a wild horse while riding a ATV...(One end of the rope was tied to the front rack of the ATV) but I don't think I could possibly get through the entire story without laughing myself into a coma.

Just one little info to give you a heads up... Deer aren't the only things that "Explode" when you throw a rope around their necks! Infact, even the Yamaha Big Bear 400 4x4 felt the pain. It was retired shortly after the "show" and has since been sold for parts... It only got dragged for about six or seven hundred yards before the horse got tired of dragging an upside down 600 lb 4-wheeler. The horse turned around and pulled backwards until the rope came off of its neck and trotted away.
 
Been there done that . In my defense i was riding pens in a feed yard at the time , the deer was mired in a settling pond and i couldnt see a nice little buck die that way so it was rope him and drag him out or shoot him ( out of season ) . A critical item is that i had a hand there dumb enough to attempt to get my rope off and to this day he wears the scars to prove it . He did get the rope loose enough that the deer ran thro the loop within about 300 yards and i could reclaim the rope lol .
 
Almost every year you hear about someone who was killed by their "pet" deer. I got backed down by one during an evening walk by the Deschutes river. I was taking a walk at night and walked up on a buck with some does eating apples. The buck saw me and started doing the stiff legged walk forward while lowering his head and shaking it. I reversed course and got out of there.
 
I actually found a nice little 6-point buck with a lariat rope still around it's neck tangled up in a barb-wire fence about two years ago.
It had been dead awhile.

First thing I thought of was the "cowboy" that probably regretted laying a rope on it!

It would have been pretty funny if it hadn't ended so sadly, with the deer starving to death, tangled up in a fence.

rcmodel
 
Funny story!

One of the most painful lessons I ever learned was that the FIRST step in freeing a deer with its back legs caught in a barbed wire fence is to shoot the deer.
 
Can't....breathe....stomach.....hurts....laughing...................

Never read that one before, but good Lord, that's funny.

Springmom
 
Is this a good place for my post # 1 or what??

Many years ago it seemed like a (???) thing to do would be to try this same thing, deer came in by the barn to clean up after cows... I got a 5-gallon metal bucket, smeared molasses around the rim to hold the rope in place, put some grain in the bucket, cows in the barn, and wait for a candidate.
Rope was tied off hard & fast inside the barn, soon a little buck showed up and eventuallly went for the grain. I yarded on him and caught him behind the eyes, ahead of his antler stubs. First thought .... oh-oh, there goes the barn wall; first observation....there went the top of the manure pile (sliced off by the rope); next observation....boy am I lucky, the rope broke where it went through the hondo and the barn wall's still standing. We've had some chuckles since then, recalling it.
Just one of the steps in my still-ongoing education.

Got a string on a badger once, too,but it was a shorter string, it didn't break, and the critter came the other way after one tug on him.
But that's another story....
 
Got a string on a badger once, too,but it was a shorter string, it didn't break, and the critter came the other way after one tug on him.
But that's another story....

Did that too , and managed to get the badger into a buddys pickup as paybacks for a joke he pulled on me . As you said another story tho lol .
 
In the 1920s, my Uncle Carroll ran away from home and got a job at the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma. The 101, aside from being a working cattle ranch also put on rodeos and had a "Wild West" show.

Uncle Carroll won a saddle at one of the rodeos, and some of the older cowhands were joshing him, so to prove he really was a cowboy, he roped a deer.

Fifty years later, he still had the saddle, with four deer hoofprints stamped in the seat, as clearly as if the saddlemaker had done it.
 
Words can not describe how funny I think that was what kind of a moron ropes a deer I could see down south roping a SMALL yearling and MAYBE get it in but up here in illinois where we got some real wallhangers i can't think of too many people off of the top of my head that would be dumb enough to do that. Holy Crap thats funny :D:D:D
 
Some roping is best done by two guys, not just one. Watch the "head and heels" team roping at a rodeo, for one example. Back in the old days in California, vaqueros would rope grizzly bears--but that definitely was not a wise thing for a solo guy to do.

Ya never know what'll happen when you daub a string on something. Back when I was ten or so, my grandfather and I were herding a young Hereford bull down the road to a neighbors's for delivery after the sale. Just a couple or three miles. We're horsebacking along peacefully, until we came to a crossroads. Naturally the bull turned the wrong way.

Me being the heroic cowboy, I sailed in after him, and decided in my infinite wisdom that I'd rope him and lead him back. The roping part went just fine. My horse sat back and the bull hit the end of the string.

Trouble was, the cinch was old. Broke. The back of the saddle hit me in the butt and I squirted up yea verily like unto a watermelon seed. I won't say it was Low Earth Orbit, this being long before that sort of thought, but I can relate to it, for sure.

"Up high I turns over, and below I can see...that hard caliche dirt, just awaitin' for me..."

I guess I bounced. My grandfather was roaring with laughter. I wasn't.

The bull stopped and began grazing. I walked back home. My grandfather herded bull, rope and saddle on to the new owner, and brought home a rather worn saddle. I was a little shy about this roping thing, after that.

:), Art
 
Yes deer can be hunted with a rope. True professionals use a belted magnum nylon rope with a F150 attached to get em dead in their tracks. Some hunters use a light weight clothes line rope but knot placement is important for a clean kill.
 
I love to read that story over and over, but something was missing, so I went here for the real answer:

http://www.snopes.com/critters/farce/ropedeer.asp

And sure enough, the rest of the story as I first read it was there. I don't know who wrote it, but they're the hunting/outdoor equivalent of Dave Barry. I never get tired of reading it!

For those who have missed it, the original version omitted the last line from the OP's version and ended like this:

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 obviously 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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