How [not] to Rope a Deer

Ron in Arizona sent me the following story. He suggested I might have written it. After reading, I realized I might have. But I didn't. There but for the grace of God...


Here's the story.
...

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 -- three 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, the deer 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. Never underestimate Bambi.

The Hunt

I would like to say at the outset, I do not suffer from blood lust, particularly when it comes to deer. In my youth, I hunted like the character Will Muny in the movie Unforgiven. I shot nearly everything that walked, crawled or flew. Now, I am all murdered out. The thought of killing a deer, or any game for that matter, immediately brings to mind the unmaking of the beast. Then, my conscience reminds me of the delicious and inexpensive meats available at my local Costco. Such thoughts can sap anyone’s enthusiasm for harvesting fresh meat.

We arose early Sunday morning. I cooked a hot breakfast to sustain us through the day. Had I known what was in store, I might have dipped into something a bit stronger, say crack cocaine. We made the drive to the ranch (In these parts, they say “Rainch.”), arriving an hour before dawn. (I took a photo of the Somervell County Courthouse at about 0530!) We silently donned rifles, binoculars, skinning knives, pistols, hats, grenades, MP3 players and other paraphernalia necessary for our primitive adventure. Then, dressed as Redneck insurgents, we trudged through the darkness toward our hunting stands. After six weeks of rain, the earth squished as we walked.

Climbing into a ten-foot tall, wobbly and leaning deer stand in the pitch darkness is no mean feat. If I fell, I would land in the center of a collection of sharp, explosive gear and on top of a cactus. No good could come of that. We reached our perches without incident and began the long wait for Bambi’s father.

As I waited, I discovered my stand was next to the tree home to fifty thousand starving mosquitoes. Batting at them took my mind off the fact that one leg of my stand was sinking into the earth a little faster than the other two. If the list increased, I would eventually topple onto that earth.

No deer were available for shooting. We decided to visit a few local sites, including an old (1886) Norwegian church, St. Olaf’s Kirk. We stretched our legs and I took a few photos. Once refreshed, we returned to the hunt. Still, there were no deer. Part of me was disappointed, maybe insulted, the deer did not show. The rest of me was glad I would not be field dressing a carcass in the mud. I could live with that.

When we had enough empty silence, we walked back to the truck. Deer hunting without deer is very boring and even a little stressful. I found myself thinking “C’mon, you. Show up!” At the truck, we disarmed, disrobed and disinfected ourselves back to civilian configuration. Now, all we needed to do was drive home to hot showers, warm meals and early-to-bed. It was going to be a perfect day, after all.

When we arrived, I parked the truck at the end of a 200-foot road in the pasture. We kept close to the county road and away from the remote pastures for fear of sinking in the muddy earth.

It turned out we were a tad short on fear. I nudged the Toyota toward the gate and the hard surface road just beyond. After a hundred feet, I felt a sinking sensation and the truck seemed to get closer to the earth. Much closer. We were stuck. We were within sight of safety and solid earth less than 100 feet away. Reflexively, I gunned the engine. No progress. I slammed the transmission into reverse and revved the engine. The truck moved inches. Then I slammed the shifter into second gear and crushed the accelerator to the floor. We gained inches. A nearby debris pile provided wood, which we stuffed under the tires.

Did I mention black, gooey mud covered me from head to foot? Did I mention grass and twigs covered the mud? No? I was quite a sight. The truck fared no better and I wondered how the car wash people would react to a truck apparently made of mud, twigs and grass.

After a long struggle, the truck managed to wallow out of the mud and onto the county road. We drove home in silence, too exhausted to either laugh or cry. Still, I reckon it was a successful trip because I did not have to field dress a carcass and THEN be stuck in the mud.