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, which 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 hound 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 doesn’t mmediately
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 hile
you are laying there crying like a little girl and covering your head.
If 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 I’d just come from a bar-room brawl. 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 Montana 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 wn.
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 o 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 around here. I have to see these people every day and ss
an outsider, a “city folk”, I have enough trouble fitting in without
them snickering behind my back and whispering “there is the dumb-butt”
that tried to rope the deer.
This is not my story but it is a classic. I also know a few guys that tried this here in Nebraska and after $10,000 in damage to their vehicle they cut the rope. Also one should not try this while horse back, because the deer will circle you and wrap the rope around the horses legs. Not a good combination.
