Actual Letter written by a rancher....
>
> I had this idea that I was going to rope a deer, put it in a
> stall, feed it corn for a couple of months, then kill it and
> eat it...
>
> The first step in this adventure was 'getting' a deer. I
> figured, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do
> not seem to have much fear of me (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 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
> ready rope.
>
> The cattle, having seen the roping thing before, stayed well
> back. They were not having any of it.
>
> After about 20 minutes, the deer showed up...3 of them. I
> picked out a likely-looking one, stepped out from the end of
> the feeder, and threw my lasso. The deer just stood there,
> staring 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 I could tell it was mildly concerned about the
> whole rope situation.
>
> I took a step toward 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 like a rocket!
>
> 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 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 slowly 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...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, so 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
> up 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 my truck and the deer went
> away.
>
> So now I know why, when people go deer hunting, they bring a
> rifle with a scope, and stay as far away from that deer
> until they are sure it is edible!