Recently I got this idea that rather than hunt I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a a couple of months, then kill, butcher, and put it in the freezer. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. 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 four feet away. So figured it should not be difficult to rope one, get up to it, 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 twenty minutes my deer showed up...three 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 & stared at me. I wrapped the rope around my waist and twisted the end good 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 the 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 can fight down using a rope with some dignity. A deer, not a chance! That thing ran and bucked and twisted & 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 some animals. A brief ten minutes later, it was tired and not nearly as quick to jerk me off my feet and drag me. 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, but I then managed to get up.
Right 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 evil deer. I hated the thing and 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 I shared no small 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. 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 & 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 daylights 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 such trickery did not work.
In the course of a millisecond I deployed a different strategy, 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 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.
Pretty beat up, with my scalp split open, I also had several large goose eggs, and my wrist was bleeding pretty good. It felt broken, but turned out to be just badly bruised. Oh, and my back was bleeding in a few places, even though my insulated canvas jacket had protected me from the worst of it.
I drove to the nearest place, which was the co-op, got out of the truck, covered in blood & dust & looking like hell.. The guy who ran the place saw me through the window. He came running out yelling "Oh my God, What happened to you? What happened?" Not wanting to admit that I had done something monumentally stupid, I told him "I was attacked by a deer."
Now, I have never seen any law in the province of Alberta that would prohibit an individual from roping a deer. I suspect that this is an area that they have overlooked entirely. Probably because they didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to try. Knowing the lengths to which some law enforcement personnel will go to exercise their power, I was concerned that they may find a way to twist some existing laws to paint my actions as criminal, and did not tell him that at the time it had my 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. I asked him to call somebody to come get me, as I wasn't sure I could make it home on my own. So he did.
Later that afternoon, a game warden showed up at my house & wanted to know about the deer attack. Surprisingly, deer attacks are a rare thing, and Parks & Wildlife was interested in the event. I tried to describe the attack carefully. "Well, I was just filling the grain hopper and this deer came out of nowhere and started kicking the hell out of me and BIT me! It was obviously rabid or insane or something!”
EVERYBODY for miles around now knows about the deer attack. The guy at the co-op talks a lot. For several weeks now, people have dragged their kids into the house when they see deer around, and the local ranchers are carrying rifles when they fill their feeders. I have told several people the story, and figured I should let you all know, as well.
Have a good Victoria Day, Gentlemen.
Ted
