Ardmore, OK
The mental picture of this is way too hilarious if it wasn't so dumb.
> Why we shoot deer in the wild (A letter from someone who
> wants to remain anonymous, who farms, writes well and reportedly actually
> tried this)
>
> I had this idea that I could 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 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. I didn't want the deer to have to
> 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 bitten by a horse where they just bite you and slide off to
> 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 tendons 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......to sort of even the odds!!
>
> All these events are true so help me God... An
> Okie Educated Farmer
>