How not to get venison

[Big Sarge]

I don't know the veracity of this, but I found it quite entertaining

I had the 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 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 look 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 -- I had no
chance.

That thing ran, bucked, 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 third thing I learned, 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 the blood flowing out of the big
gash in my head mostly blinded me.
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 that 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 that deer and me.
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 it 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 started moving up so I could get my
rope back.

The fourth thing I learned... 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 pitbull. 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 bejesus out
of my right arm, I reached up with my left hand and pulled that rope
loose.

That was when I got my fifth lesson in deer behavior for the
ay-- Deer will strike at you with their front feet. They rear right up
on their back feet, 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 cannot 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.

Lesson six... 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... so that they can be somewhat equal to the prey'.

[classicman]

Holy crap - funniest story I've read in a long long time! Outstanding.