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deer roping

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 congregated 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) that 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, which had 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 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 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 originally imagined. The only up side is that they do not have as much stamina as many animals. A brief 10 minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me whe n 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 lik e a squeeze chute. I got it to back in there and started moving up so I could get my rope back.

Did you know that deer bite ? 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 three 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 it does 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.

I was pretty beat up. My scalp was split open, I had several large goose eggs, my wrist was bleeding pretty good and felt broken (it turned out to be just badly bruised) and my back was bleeding in a few places, though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from most of the worst of it. I drove to the nearest place, which was the Co-Op. I got out of the truck, covered in blood and dust and looking like ****. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window and came running out yelling, "What happened?"

I have never seen any law in the state of Montana that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Knowing, as I do, the lengths to which law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist the existing laws to paint my actions as criminal. I swear... not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid played no part in my response. I told him, "I was attacked by a deer." (I did not mention that at the time I had a rope on it) The evidence was all over my body. Deer prints on the back of my jacket where it had stomped all over me and a large deer print on my face where it had struck me there. I asked him to call somebody to come get me. I didn't think I could make it home on my own. He did.

Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house and wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing and wildlife and parks was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack as completely and accurately as I could. I was filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and just started kicking the **** out of me and BIT me. It was obviously rabid or insane or something.

EVERYBODY for miles around knows about the deer attack (the guy at the Co-Op has a big mouth). For several weeks people dragged their kids in the house when they saw deer around and the local ranchers carried rifles when they filled their feeders. I have told several people the story, but NEVER anybody around here. I have to see these people every day and as an outsider - a "city folk," I have enough trouble fitting in without them snickering behind my back and whispering, "There's the ******* that tried to rope the deer!"

I should have just shot him to begin with....he was already fat from eating at the feeder !!!!
 
Had this made it onto YouTube you'd be a celebrity now.
 
True story?
:scratch:

:pics:


I guess you get the award for most spectacular mistake. Why didnt you let go of the rope once you stated being dragged... one of those instinctive hold on reactions?




Oh and the expected blah blah that cant be legal wild animal blah blah too, as per norm. Since you came off worse than the deer... i guess you already know.
 
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.

That sentence alone makes me wonder.... WHY??? Whats this fascination about killing and eating another animal: especially a wild one?
 
Meat tastes good (as long as I don't have to think about the grisly details.) I always thought it's weird as hell whenever people take pleasure in killing an animal, but I understand hunting for food. I almost cried whenever I nicked a toad with a weed eater. I kid you not. Once my dog was playing with a mole and broke it's back and it just laid there trying to move, bleeding. I had to snap it's neck. I felt SO bad but I know I did the right thing. A quick death is better than a slow one. Man I'm sad just thinking about it. I'm a soft-hearted pansy I guess.

Many people (including myself) would say killing a deer that's spent it's life in the wild, free, is far better than eating beef raised in a factory farm. Wouldn't you? It's basically free range instead of from a factory farm.
 
Where did you get that story from. I know you didn't really do that. It reminds me of the guy that got the idea about 10 years ago that set up a video camera and poured deer pee on himself with the idea of boxing a buck. Much to his misfortune a elk showed up and beat the #### out of him.
 
Whether or not you actually did that doesn't even matter to me. That story had me laughing on the floor. Good stuff.
 
After I made the post above, I googled deer roping and got it.
 
  • #10
:grin:

hats this fascination about killing and eating another animal: especially a wild one?

take it your a vegitarian?
 
  • #11
very good story!

Whats this fascination about killing and eating another animal: especially a wild one?
I wouldn't call it a fascination. I went out yesterday and bagged my limit on pheasant, and when I'm ripping into those pheasant fajitas, believe me, I will not be calling it a fascination.

Vegitarians kill bananas, SAVE THE BANANAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
  • #12
Vegitarians kill bananas, SAVE THE BANANAS

i know, i hate the whole "i dont eat living things" thing. What d'ya call plants? non-living?

i dont dis-like vegetarians, just a dumb rule.

ANYWAY...good story! had me goin'! :D :-))
 
  • #13
i have no issue with vegitarians....got a couple friends who are mostly vegitarian as they just dont like the taste of red meat but are fine with birds and fish.

as for a facination of killing something....no facination......its a messy process if done right....i mainly hunt for meat...generally kill more animals of the female persuation than males as they generally make better eating. i also occationally hunt for horns cause i generally need some salami and such and the quality of meat isnt as important as when your cutting steaks to fry on the grill....my wife, my stepdaughters and i are quite familiar with the whole process from pulling the trigger to cutting steaks and making sausage(both breakfast and polish). the girls have also been exposed to a working cattle ranch and all that goes with it. i am actually quite happy with the fact that at 9 and 12 both girls know where that nicely packaged meat layed out in a store comes from.
 
  • #14
i have no issue with vegitarians....got a couple friends who are mostly vegitarian as they just dont like the taste of red meat but are fine with birds and fish.

as for a facination of killing something....no facination......its a messy process if done right....i mainly hunt for meat...generally kill more animals of the female persuation than males as they generally make better eating. i also occationally hunt for horns cause i generally need some salami and such and the quality of meat isnt as important as when your cutting steaks to fry on the grill....my wife, my stepdaughters and i are quite familiar with the whole process from pulling the trigger to cutting steaks and making sausage(both breakfast and polish). the girls have also been exposed to a working cattle ranch and all that goes with it. i am actually quite happy with the fact that at 9 and 12 both girls know where that nicely packaged meat layed out in a store comes from.

Anyone else getting hungry for a bacon burger? Washed down with some lamb (think gyro-style) mmmmm.
 
  • #15
There's a place for all of god's creatures.... it's right next to the mashed potatoes...
 
  • #16
also as far as out right killing....i do varmit and preditor control work for family and friends.......at my uncles' places i do my best to keep the ground squirril populations within 100 yards or so of their roads at sane levels other wise they would have to have the roads rebuilt every year do to the critters tunneling under the road bed. anything more than about 100 yards out is left alone. i also do some coyote hunting at their places though not much as they generally have their cows calving close to the house and its not so much of a worry. i will be thinning out the coyotes at the parents farm of one of the employees here at the paper this winter. they would like to raise some sheep again but the coyotes are to thick out at their place, they asked me to see what i can do to drop the population by about half. you will NEVER get rid of all the 'yotes, thats about impossible, besides you want some to keep the rabbits and other critters in check........just dont want so many around where your loosing to much livestock....always going to loose the occational one but at this point they dont even want to get any sheep in the spring cause the yotes are to thick......i pretty much leave foxes alone as they are mainly rabbit and mouse hunters, they sure wont bother a calf unless they are starving and doubt they would bug a sheep much.....
 
  • #17
Would a couple of rottweilers, bullmastiffs, or dobermanns be able to stop coyotes? Or are they too wiley?
 
  • #18
I hope that's not a true story at all. :( How cruel.

There are incidents of people being trampled to death by deer jumping on them repeatedly with all 4 feet. And does do it more often than bucks. Its probably just payback...
 
  • #19
Would a couple of rottweilers, bullmastiffs, or dobermanns be able to stop coyotes? Or are they too wiley?

you would have to leave them with the sheep all the time and i dont think any of those breeds are ideal.....seen coyotes kill rather large labs before........contrary to what most ppl think 'yotes arent nessisarily loners.....they are quite often found living in groups of 2 or 3....sometimes up to 5.....when its 3 on one 'yotes are pretty good at killing dogs......even large dogs.....there are a couple breeds that work well to keep yotes from the sheep but they arent as cheap as me giving up some free time and a lil lead....not to mention you still wind up with dead 'yotes...

know some ppl that used to "hunt" coyotes with hounds......they would use grey hounds to run down and would run past the yote, grab a hind leg on the way by and trip up the yotes....greyhounds are a bit lightly built for fighting so they also ran a irish wolf hound or two with the greyhounds.......the wolf hounds arent as fast as the greys but generally werent far behind and would make short work of the coyote.....but this was a pack of dogs versus one 'yote at a time.........
 
  • #20
I have just taken up deer hunting (for food) and heard the stories of just how dangerous these animals can be but honestly, I was rolling on the floor laughing.
 
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