Why We shoot deer in the wild

[msgbarney]

I found this quite humorous and thought I would share.

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

[tbrooks81]

I needed a good laugh, thanks for sharing!

[couesarcher]

This is absolutely hilarious, I was laughing so hard I was crying.

 

This is what you call great entertainment.

 

Terry

 

[Dave Price]

Reminded me of this one I found online:

 

Bobcat in a Suitcase

 

 

This really really happened, and yes I was a major participant (conspirator I believe is the legal term) and was the early 1970s (73' or 74")in Fayetteville NC. For you newbies (at Ft Bragg), Hay Street was all bars and massage parlors, (God, those were the days) particularily the 500 block and crowded with several thousand thirsty and horny GIs every Sat night. However, our travels were normally limited to Hay St as even God did not go on Gillespie street at night as it was too dangerous. Lot of seedy rif raf of all types and you had to be looking for a fight or extreme trouble to go there.

 

I was a young Sgt in SF, single, a barracks rat and looking for adventure of all types. Three of us went over to a guys house for a "few" beers. He said come and look what he had in the garage. He had a bobcat in a plastic dog kennel. It seems that he had hit it with a car, was going to mount it and had thrown it in the trunk. As he was taking it out he noticed it was still alive so he put it in the kennel and had been keeping it while he decided what to do with it.

 

Now after a few more beers, the discussion centered around what to do with a bobcat and an appropriate course of action was decided.

 

The old Greyhound bus station used to be on Gillespie street and had a bad reputation for robberies and people stealing suitcases as one of the many issues. So naturally we decided to put the bobcat in the suitcase and see if it could get stolen and what might happen.

 

We had been drinking! (Now there is a surprise) Yes, alcohol was involved (does this term sound familiar. This was one pissed off kitty and he looked like he weighed about 30-35 plus pounds so our ORM (Operational Risk Managment) rules kicked in.

 

Rule #1- Is this going to hurt?

 

Rule #2 Is it going to leave a mark?

 

rule #3 Am I going to get in trouble for this?

 

(If we can teach our children these, they might survive!)

 

Pretty sure all the beers helped the cognitive assessment process here too.

 

We found one old suitcase, two old wool GI blankets and two sets of the engineer gloves with the steel inserts, used for handling concertina wire. The plan (after a few more beers) was to be as follows: one blanket on the floor, two guys with gloves, one dumper of the kitty into the blanket and one guy who threw the second blanket over the kitty, and then the two handlers with gloves would leap on the second blanket and kitty and wrestle him down, and put him in the suitcase.

 

Overall it actually went pretty well, except the bobcat had to be shaken out of the cage. It never dawned on us he would be shy about coming out. This was getting pretty exciting because we were worried he would miss the blanket and we really did not have a good plan B. Now it was one heck of fight when he hit that blanket and the second blanket went over him. I was the blanket thrower by the way and not a glove wearer. (I learned the ORM rules better than the other two.) However, all basically went well after about 30-45 seconds of extreme excitement and we managed to get the cat corralled under the blanket using the gloves and blanket without any major scratches or bites. It did involve a lot of hollaring at each other and general mayhem.

 

Now getting him into that old suitcase was the next challenge and required numerous "putting them razor sharp feet back in" before we could get the lid closed and snapped.

 

This called for at least another beer as we had survived the ordeal so far.

 

We piled into a car with the suitcase, drove to the old slave market traffic circle (corner of Gillespie and Hay St) and let the guy out with the suitcase and then to the bus station to wait for him. He caught a cab to the bus station, got out and left the suitcase out front (after shaking it up to make sure Mr. Kitty was awake and in a generally foul mood) and went in and immediately out the side door. The suitcase was snatched before he got out the side door and dumped into the back seat of a Cadillac convertible with two guys in front and two guys in back. I will let you guess what type characters they were.

 

They immediately drove back up Gillespie to the traffic circle, around it and proceeded down Hay St. At that time Hay St was angle parking on the street, Sat night and traffic was moving about 1-3 mph. It was right in front of the old Prince Charles Hotel(at that time it was the hooker and Marine hangout) and we were about 3 cars back when we noticed the rapid waving of arms, general jumping about and flurry of activity coming from all four corners inside the caddie. I would have killed for a video camera then.

 

This went on for about 20 seconds or so much to our great amusement before all four doors opened and all four guys bailed out with the car still moving. The caddie continued to roll, clipping about 4-5 cars on the rear before it finally stopped in the side of a car.

 

It seems Mr. Bobcat had done the Texas chainsaw massacre version on the caddie seats (red leather by the way), vinyl roof and all occupants before they bailed. Them claws were sharp, and he zipped open everything from front to rear, top to bottom to include all four occupants. It seems that there had been a football game inside the car throwing the bobcat from back seat to front and vice versa while the cat clawed and bit the heck out of everything in between.

 

What was the highlight of the evening though, was the four guys trying to explain to the police as they were being bandaged at the scene, as to just exactly how they had come into possession of a bobcat in a suitcase in the back seat of the car.

 

In the mean time we were holding court with the large crowd about 20-30 yds down the street, telling the real story, which resulted in a lot of laughter. Finally one of the cops wandered down and asked us if we had any idea of exactly how that bobcat got into the suitcase. The answer was obviously "Absolutely not, officer, none at all". He walked away laughing, obviously figuring it out. It seems that he went back and informed his fellow officers and EMTs as to his supposition as to the true nature of the genesis of the story.

 

At this point here comes the kitty just walking down Hay St slowly like not a care in the world, daring anyone to mess with him. Obviously, it was like Moses parting the Red Sea and everyone gave him a wide berth having seen what he was capable of. He wandered off into the night in search of his lady love.

 

It seems that no charges were filed on the caddie occupants and us. I think that the police figured no one would believe it anyway and they figured some had learned their lessons about stray suitcases anyway. Plus at this stage they were laughing so hard themselves as the victims were being patched up by the EMTs and crying about being cut up.

 

Overall it was a wonderful evening, highlighting the proper use of ORM, involving alcohol, a bobcat and a lot of fun. How in the heck I actually survived those times is still a mystery. Graduated SF trng with 18 out of 116 that started and ten years later only 8-10 of us left alive.

 

Before you ask, I swear it is true and I was a participant (just do not tell my kids).

 

BH- SF (Maj Ret)

 

 

[briant_az]

Both of those stories are great!!!

 

Just goes to show you that sometimes our ideas are better left as ideas and not actions.

 

I have to say I would have paid money to see any 4 people in a car with a bobcat!

[mcelkhunter]

Absolutely hillarious!!

[WHALE]

that's pretty good

[AZantlerhead]

, true story in my family pretty similar.... but my gt. grandad didn't tie himself to the deer like this guy...lmao!

 

Bobcat's are just as nuts as coons when they wanna... grandma had a house cat that had some hybrid kitties..... at two weeks they ran around the garage like gerbils drinkin mt. dew and were some crazy little demons when u actually got umm in hand, allmost impossible to get in a box to take to the human society.... the momma house cat that got knocked up by the bob.....she was scared of umm

 

Wild Animals are.....WILD.. people get reminded now and again

[AZ FSJ'r]

LOL... thats funny right there.

[Arizonahunter]

Thats awesome...