[AT] Lets Raise Venison

D. Day ddss at telebeep.com
Wed Feb 28 05:00:41 PST 2007


Irma, thanks for a good laugh.  I've seen this before.  There's even more 
about this at 
http://2coolfishing.com/ttmbforum/archive/index.php/t-108589.html

Dick


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Irma" <bellville1 at earthlink.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 9:58 PM
Subject: [AT] Lets Raise Venison


Lets Raise Venison




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, who 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 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 to suffer a slow death. I managed to get it lined up to back 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 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 be Jesus 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 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 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.


Now for the local legend.  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 hell. 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 Kansas 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 hell 
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 round 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 is the dumb-ass that tried to rope the deer."

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