I now realize that this definitely wasn’t the brightest idea I have ever
had. 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…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.
