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Why
we shoot deer in the wild: (A letter from someone who wants to remain
anonymous, who farms, writes well and actually tried this)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 beforehand...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.
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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 slide off to 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 Farmer
Mark, I can't catch my breath from laughing so hard. Another true and similar story from a friend of mine many years ago was enough for me to think that deer hunting wasn't my cup of tea. Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteGreat story, Mark. I agree with Howard. Had to wait just a minute before typing a response here so I could make sure I didn't bust a rib while laughing so hard.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I think I'll have chicken tonight.
ReplyDeleteI haven't laughed that hard in a long time! What a great story. Whoever wrote it is a fantastic storyteller too. Wild animals certainly do behave much different than their domestic counterparts.
ReplyDeleteI will look at deer a little differently now--and continue to maintain a good distance between us. Great story!
ReplyDelete