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 ... 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 seemed 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 Farmer
After laughing and appreciating the well-written tale, I responded to my aunt: "Yet another reason why grass-fed is healthier!"
2 comments:
That was hilarious...trying to keep from laughing out loud with my napping children all around me! So glad it was not you?
Oh my goodness. I was laughing out loud AND crying. That was hilarious. Could hardly read it out loud to my hubby through all my laughing and snorting. Thanks for the good laugh. ;o)
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