Just let it eat!
Author Unknown -- probably for good reason.
The Plan
I had this idea I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it corn for a couple of weeks and then kill it and eat it.
The Execution
The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I’d noticed they congregated at my cattle feeder and didn’t seem afraid of me (a bold one would sometimes come up and sniff the feedbags while I was in the back of the truck). I figured it wouldn’t be difficult to rope one; toss a bag over its head to calm it down, hog tie it and transport it home. So, I filled the cattle feeder and hid at the far 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, three deer appeared. I picked out a likely looking one, stepped out and threw my rope around it. 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 watched me, but you could tell it was mildly concerned about the whole rope situation.
I took a step toward it ... it took a step away. I put a little tension on the rope. It was then the deer decided to give me an "education."
The Education
The first thing I learned is while deer may look at you funny while you rope them, they don’t like it when you tug on that rope – the 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. But a deer – no chance! It ran, 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 my idea wasn’t working out nearly as good as I’d planned.
The only upside is that deer don’t have the stamina of other animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet when I tried to get up. It took me a few minutes to realize this since I was mostly blinded by the blood flowing from 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 my rope.
That gash and several large knots showed how I’d cleverly arrested the deer’s momentum by bracing my head against several large rocks as it dragged me across the ground. Upon reflection, I realized I shared some tiny amount of responsibility for the situation we were in. I didn’t want the deer to drag the rope off and maybe suffer a slow death, so I managed to line it up in between my truck and the feeder. I’d set a little trap there beforehand – a kind of squeeze chute. As I got the deer in there and moved closer so I could get my rope back, the deer administered the next step in my "education."
Did you know that deer bite? They do! I never in a million years would have thought a deer would bite somebody, so I was very surprised when I reached to grab the rope and the deer grabbed hold of my wrist. Now when a deer bites you, it doesn’t just bite and let go like a horse. A deer bites you and shakes its head – almost like a pit bull.
The proper thing would probably have been to freeze and draw back slowly – I tried screaming and shaking instead. My method was ineffective. It seemed like the deer bit and shook me 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), decided to try and trick it.
While I kept it busy tearing the crap out of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled the rope loose. That was when I got my final lesson in deer behavior that day. Deer will rear up and strike at you with their front hooves, which are surprisingly sharp. When a horse does this, the best thing is to make a loud noise and move aggressively toward the animal. That will normally cause them to back down so you can escape.
However, this was a deer and such trickery would not work. In the space of a millisecond, I revised my strategy. I screamed like a woman and tried to turn and run.
Now the reason you don’t try to turn and run away from a horse is there is a good chance it will paw you in the head. Maybe deer aren’t so different from horses after all, other than being twice as strong and three times as evil. The instant I turned, the deer hit me in the back of the head and knocked me down.
Now, when a deer knocks you down, it does not immediately leave. Maybe it doesn’t recognize the danger has passed. Instead, the deer pawed my back and jumped up and down on me while I lay there, crying like a little girl and covering my head.
I finally managed to crawl under the truck and the deer went away. I then understood why people hunt deer with rifles instead of roping them. At least a firearm makes them somewhat equal to their prey!
