Why we Shoot Deer in the Wild

Emmitsburg

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… An Educated Farmer

”Life’s tough, pilgrim, and it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.”– John Wayne

Submitted by Dave, Bolder, Co.

http://www.emmitsburg.net/humor/archives/funny_stories/funny_stories_15.htm

30 thoughts on “Why we Shoot Deer in the Wild”

  1. I watched a video of a guy getting beat up by a buck during their rutting season and the deer really are some bad boys when they use their hoofs. They do not fool around. This reminds me of that grenade fishing story that was posted LOL, I just had to say it Angel hahaha.

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  4. What an idiot. Oh yeah he really is “in tune” with nature since he lives on a farm. Not! Deer are the most dangerous animals around. They are ubiquitous here in Colorado on the front range and during the rut, boy you better watch out! They will attack you like a ravenous wolf if they are protecting fawns. No wonder he wants to remain anonymous.
    Dave in Boulder CO.
    No wonder!

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  5. Humor is always good medicine and man do I feel fit after reading this! (;>)

    Seriously, I remember two men being killed by deer in Texas, years ago.

    One was a pretty old guy who just couldn’t take the pounding or maybe had a heart attack from fear at the tremendous physical brutality of the attack.

    The other was one of two young men who were fishing the Colorado river when a deer (rut) swam across the river and attacked.
    The survivor said they were at first perplexed and amused at the deer’s swimming over to them until the horror movie started.
    The lucky survivor made it to the car, and safety, while the deer proceeded to gore and stomp a mudhole into the other man, killing him. It really didn’t take that long, either.

    How many full grown wolves will attack a healthy 150 lb. buck?
    Not many, if any. They’re not that stupid.

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  6. Good one, Angel. 🙂

    Deer kill more people (around 200) every year than any other animal in the U.S.

    For some strange reason, they seem to have a habit of crossing roads in front of cars.

    p.s. tough to say who’s dumber, this guy, or the grenade fishermen. LOL

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  7. Humorous, yes, but there is humor in most situations. Deer are really tough, as anyone who hunts them seriously knows. Of the deer I’ve butchered, (40+), probably half or more had been shot before. One buck had 3 bullets and half an arrow in him. The wounds were all from previous years.

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  8. There are so many deer near me that I figured I could kill one with a baseball bat if I tried, but after reading this, I’m glad I didn’t try.

    It seems like they all left for vacation on opening day, and the rabbits eat all my bait.

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    1. Glad you didn’t try it, Jolly Roger. A baseball bat is no match for a deer.
      It is truly amazing how they instinctively know the second Deer Season begins and ends. LOL

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  9. Many years ago a friend of mine clipped a buck with his truck. The deer collapsed next to the road and rather than let it go to waste he loaded it into the truck bed. He was on his way to a muzzleloading rifle club meeting and when he arrived told us about the deer he had in the truck. I reached over the tailgate, grabbed the rack and lifted the deer’s head, and it woke up! It’s back was broken, hind legs paralyzed, but the front half was kicking my butt. One of my crazy friends walked up with a ball peen hammer, not to whack the deer, he wanted me to turn loose with one hand, take the hammer and whack the deer on the head. I ended up doing exactly that while a bunch of my idiot friends stood around placing bets on the fight.
    It wasn’t even a big buck, a big one would have fed me that hammer.

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  11. oh man i had to dry my eyes out before i could respond. My sides are aching. hahahaha thanks Angel. I needed that. 🙂

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    1. You do realize, Paul, that this article is a year and a half old, right?

      How did you find it? (without going through the archives, of course).

      Reply

      3. I posted the link for Paul, Funny Farmer, and Bulldog (didn’t think they were w/ the Trenches in 2012 and had seen it) in the comments for Funny Farmer’s “Rabbit/Duck/ Whatever Season” story. He made reference to Deer hunting and I couldn’t get “Never Rope a Deer” out of my head. LOL

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          2. Darn! I don’t remember the title of that one or I’d look it up.
            BTW- I sent you 3 video choices, #1.

          3. The link to it is right above these comments, Angel. Posted it for some guy named Dave. But the video has been removed.

          6. Outstanding, Henry/(Admin)!!! (who does ALL the work, I know, I know) LOL!!! 😆

            That was always one of my favorites

          9. Worthy of a repost? A lot of the newer readers probably haven’t seen it. It is pretty hilarious. 🙂

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