The Deer Roper

[West_Texas_Bull_Shooter]

Roping A Deer------- ( Names have been removed to protect the Stupid! )

Actual letter from someone who farms and writes well!


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 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 up side 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 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 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 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.

 

[Mekaniks]

to AH!!

All I can say is I wish there had been a video camera

 

[Cooposo]

My burly lumberjack neighbor once found a little speckled fawn bedded down and sleeping next to a tree he was getting ready to work on. He decided to grab it and take it to show to the rest of the lumber camp.

He got trounced by it.

For the few seconds he could hold on to it he was completely caught off guard by its strength. Then it got some legs free, the little hooves started flying, and it was all over. The deer quickly escaped. He was bruised all over, and he had to tell the other lumberjacks he couldn’t even go toe to toe with a tiny little fawn.

 

[Newboomer]

My burly lumberjack neighbor once found a little speckled fawn bedded down and sleeping next to a tree he was getting ready to work on. He decided to grab it and take it to show to the rest of the lumber camp.

He got trounced by it.

For the few seconds he could hold on to it he was completely caught off guard by its strength. Then it got some legs free, the little hooves started flying, and it was all over. The deer quickly escaped. He was bruised all over, and he had to tell the other lumberjacks he couldn’t even go toe to toe with a tiny little fawn.

My deer story: I shot a small doe and hit her a little far back, a spine shot that took her hind legs out of commission. She started to crawl away using front legs. I ran like hell and caught her, jumped on her back and grabbed her around the neck. I had my knife out and was set to slit her throat rather than shoot again. Not so easy. She threw her head back and caught me right in the face with enough force to knock me loose. I jumped her again, caught her under the chin and finished her off. Lesson learned. Don't try riding a deer, wounded or otherwise.

 

[glblanchard]

I was maybe 6 or 8 years old, my dad had an apple orchard in La Luz, NM. There were always deer around, I talked him into roping one. He was on his rope horse, thought he would show me what a cowboy could do. He roped it all right, when that doe hit the end of the rope, she came right back up that rope into the saddle with dad. It was a real rodeo for a few minutes. Horse bucking, deer trying to get away, me screaming. I thought that deer was going to kill my dad, or his favorite rope horse, or both. He finally got everything untangled and choked down the deer. He bailed off the horse, ran down the rope like a calf roper and jerked the rope off the deer. There were always deer around, I never asked again!

 

[Ridge Runner]

Never try this....unless the deer is willing and understanding.

BTW the deer in North Carolina are small compared to northern deer.

It was the second weekend of archery deer season. I was taking a youngster (~15ish years old) on his 2nd deer hunt, his first with me present. I was driving us to some private property to hunt that morning.

Off to the side of the road was a small deer, maybe 6 to 8 months old, well out of spots, feeding. There was a chance this deer or its momma may have been hit by a car so I told youngster if it was still there on our way back I'd take a look at it.

Our morning deer hunt had been devasted by a pack of dogs. We still hunted the area for a couple of hours with low hopes of seeing any deer. So we left heading to another property.

I didn't give any more thought about that first deer still being around. After we passed by youngster said that deer was still there. I did say I would take a look at it. So I turned the Ford station wagon around and proceeded back to the deer. Parked my car off the road and told youngster to quietly stay in the car. Which he did.

I slipped around to the back of the car and gave a few soft fawn bleats to get the deer's attention. The deer paid me no mine so I used a deer grunt call. The deer looked up in my direction for a couple of seconds and went back to feeding.

This just didn't seem right. The deer should have bolted away. Now I felt the need to get a closer look at the deer. I slowly and calmly, occasionally giving a doe bleat, walked up to the deer a softly ran the back of my hand across its hind end. Well the deer just politely moved forward without looking around.

At this point youngster was going into spasms, in the car, at what I was doing and seeing the calm reactions by the deer.

I gently petted the deer a few times while looking it over for any external injuries. There weren't any external injuries I could see. But the deer was acting strange so I retreated back to my car opened the rear hatch and got a piece of bailing twine, not my first choice it was the only "rope" I had.

I told youngster to remain quiet and calm that I was going to try to get the deer and we'll take it over to the veterinarian, whose property we headed to hunt on, have a look at the deer.

It took a bit of uneventful time, but I was able to gently pick up the deer much like a rancher picking up a new born calf. That's when things started getting eventful. The deer didn't quite take to having all four of its legs off the ground at the same time. And in picking the deer up I inadvertently caused it pain by pressing on its internal injuries.

The deer calmed down on the way to the car. It didn't quite like the idea of going for a ride. That's when I found out how sharp deer hooves are. A hoof sliced through my thick hunting shirt and put a 2-3 inch scratch across my midsection. I still gently placed the deer in the back cargo area of the station wagon and was too gentle on binding/calf tying it's hooves.

On the way to the veterinarian youngster needed to make a pit stop at home. Turning into his driveway, It was at this point the deer decided it wanted to stand up. Guess the deer wanted to see if we were there yet, or at least where it was at.

Stopping in front of youngster's home, this all happened rather simultaneously: Mom came out on the porch to greet us, youngster steps out of the car and the deer falls into the back seat. His mom asked if we got anything, youngster says yes mom thinks he telling a tale, I'm trying to make the deer more comfortable in the back seat for the journey to the veterinarian, Mom doesn't see the deer in the cargo area where youngster said it was, mom comes around to my side, driver's side, and sees me and the deer in the back seat, mom surprised is an understatement, squeals in her deep southern draw...."Y"! It's still alive!"

With a bit of debate over taking the deer to the vet for treatment youngster's mom convinced me to put the deer out of its suffering as the deer blew a couple of air bubbles on its nose.

While performing the deer autopsy, aka skinning, gutting, and butchering process, revealed only two unbroken ribs on one side, all but 2 broken ribs on the other side, and multiple mass muscle bruising. Looking at the lungs I couldn't see a definitive puncture wound.

Later that evening youngster told the blow by blow details on how "we" got that deer; {well...he is the one that first spotted the deer and he did spot it second time we passed by it;}, while eating fresh, tender, properly cooked venison back straps, mashed potatoes and gravy, and fresh from the garden green beans for supper that night at youngster's home. I still acknowledged to his mom my regrets, that I should have taken the deer to the veterinarian first, before turning it into a couple of meals.

FYI: The deer weighed about ~50 + pounds live weight. After the "autopsy" there might have been about 20 - 22 pounds of deboned venison.

 

[buck wild]

I have a video somewhere taken in the early 90's of a very large buck that was roped by a cowboy in Mexico. There is a lady kneeling behind it, and at first you think it's a buck she shot, until it blinks its eyes . Those Mexican cowboys are magical with their skills !

 

[Philip Glass]

I needed a good laugh today! Having handled deer I know all too well what they are capable of. Those hooves are like razor blades.