Thread: Why we shoot deer in the wild :)

To lighten up for the weekend, a friend sent this email to me, not sure if it was true or not, but a really good laugh!!

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 Farmer

Thanks for sharing.

ROFLMAO!! HAHAHAHA oh my poor monitor...covered in coffee. LOL

Thank you, I need the laugh.

This is funny, it said it was true, but wasn't sure, but could you imagine someone actually thinking this was possible? Deer can be really dangerous with their ability to rear up and kick with those sharp toes (they are called that I swear).

Out in the town my parents ran a business in, in the mid eighties, Burns Oregon, the hunters out there had a way to hunt antelope, but it was supposed to be a no-no. They would lay low in the grass, get out there red handkerchief and wave it. Antelope are notoriously curious (and a bit dumb), and will come sauntering over to see what the flashy red thing is, and then BANG! Cheating yes, but some did it anyways.

Thanks for sharing!!!!!! OMG is all I can say.....

Oh my, oh my... thanks for the laugh

This is just hilarious... I shared it with some stressed out folks...

The tears are rolling and I can't stop laughing!!

That was classic!


All I could visualize, is my brother-in-law's face as the farmer!!!
Hilarious.

About two years ago, we went out on a family outing into Eastern Oregon (we live in the western part). We drove up to a place called Prineville Resevoir State Park. It was fall, and hunting season was on, so the local deer were staying low in the park, where some retiree campers were.

We get out and I am walking around with the kids telling them the stories of my own families trips up there. I turn and find my Chicago raised husband surrounded by deer, because he had come down with a large box full of Nilla Wafers, and was sharing them. However it was turning into a bit if a frenzy with the deer checking out his pockets and pulling on his jacket. I kept telling him to stop, they would just get more bold, and then walks up a young buck...he started nosing out the young and the does, and comes up with his moderate rack down.

My husband thinks this is great and offers him up a cookie, and he takes it, but I am getting nervous as this is not the season to be consorting with the bucks.....Box is empty now and the buck wants more and closing the gap between them. Finally my husband listens and backs out and walks away....Crisis averted.

Oh my...I really needed a good laugh this morning!!

Thanks so much for posting AE

AE,

Thank you for the great laughs. I read it a friend who has been hunting deer since he was 13 and he loved it.