Sometimes we need a good laugh

Now I do not know the true validity of the e-mail below....what I do know is the more I read it - the more I laughed and all of us need a good laugh now and again.

The e-mail reads as follows:

"Subject: 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 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."

I Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. I appreciate the pictures that you have been sending. I talked with a friend of mine who just returned from Alberta where he and his brother harvested two nice deer in the 160 class. I am also reviewing/editing some footage form a fantastic red fish and trout bite that is going on here in NC. I will be posting these in the very near future.

Stay safe and do not forget to laugh.

rb