Why we shoot deer in the wild (A letter from
someone who wants to remain anonymous, who farms, writes well and
actually 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 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.
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 Cowboy.
I'll pay for your contraception if you'll
pay for my ammunition.
Most
of us fear failure. Instead, fear success in things that do not matter
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