This "CRACKED" me up!
Actual letter from someone who ranches (and really should
know better) He writes well and 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 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..
All these events are true so help me God... An Educated,
Bruised and Bleeding Rancher.......................
Actual letter from someone who ranches (and really should
know better) He writes well and 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 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..
All these events are true so help me God... An Educated,
Bruised and Bleeding Rancher.......................