I found this on rec.hunting
How To Rope 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 trans****t 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, 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
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