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Originally posted by drummondlindsey:
Ray Atkinson might chime in here. He has claimed that he and some old Mexican cowboys used to round them up to sell them and that they were so wild they literally had to sew the eyelids shut on these wild cattle just to be able to have a cattle drive to the sale barn

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He has claimed that he and some old Mexican cowboys used to round them up to sell them and that they were so wild they literally had to sew the eyelids shut on these wild cattle just to be able to have a cattle drive to the sale barn

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Originally posted by drummondlindsey:
Ray Atkinson might chime in here. He has claimed that he and some old Mexican cowboys used to round them up to sell them and that they were so wild they literally had to sew the eyelids shut on these wild cattle just to be able to have a cattle drive to the sale barn

~Ann

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Originally posted by swampshooter:
I wouldn't raise the BS flag for Ray. He's done more hunting than most of us have even dreamed about, and been around a long time.

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
I don't consider cattle dangerous under any circumstances, at least not anymore so than a dog..Dogs bite folks all the time but I dont' consider dogs dangerous either...

I leased the 75,000 ac. Rosillas Mt. Ranch in the Big Bend of Texas, 90 miles So. of Marathon, Texas in the 70s and it had wild longhorn cattle on it that had Cap Yates brand on them so most of the old branded cows had to be at least 20 years old.  I was told I could shoot them, have them hunted or do whatever I wanted to with them as they could not be gathered..

Over the next 120 days me and 4 Mexican cowboys roped them, sewed their eyelids near shut and lead them out one at a time to my pens. I sold them to JD Bloodworth in Colorado..I shot one steer but only because he had 7 ropes on him, and he presented himself at just the right time, he had a fantastic set of horns so I had him butchered and his head mounted. The meat was not good at all..

If wild cattle are dangerous then so are domestic cows because they have injured or killed more folks than the wild ones have.

I have a mild disregard for hunting domestic animals like cattle, sheep, and goats, under the pretext of real hunting...I make an exception for hogs as they need killing or they will take over an area..Just my opinnion and I don't hold it to anyone else, what other folks do along these lines is their business..

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I wouldn't raise the BS flag for Ray. He's done more hunting than most of us have even dreamed about, and been around a long time.

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
Bobby Tomak,
There was a guy South of Marathon and Sanderson that was selling wild bull hunts, actually they were Mexican fighting bulls that got across the river...He didn't have much success at selling the hunts so he hired a bunch of us kids to gather them up or rope them or dart them..Being kids we roped most of them and when we had a load we offed them to San Angelo...I was told they would charge when you shot them, but they didn't seem all that bad to us, just like any other wild cow, but really fun to rope, get them down, sew one eye shut and most of the other eye shut and then you could drive them to the pens..

We also had a herd of wild Longhorns from the original Cap Yates herd on the Rosillas Ranch South of Marathon, Texas..When I leased it, we roped all those cattle and sold them to JC Bloodworth in Colorado, some of those Long horns were at least 25 years old..The Bull was really old and we sold him at auction in Midland, Texas, He got loose and  came home, about 300 miles btw, quite a trip, so we roped him again and just let him go finish his life out, sans his nuts!  

Jerry Huffaker, the good taxidermist, who posts here was a good friend of the Yates family. Cap Yates was the sole owner of Yates Field, and never knew he was one of the richest men in the world, he was just a cowboy and a grand old man, as was his son Fayette...

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Originally posted by Outdoor Writer:
Hey Drum, did Ray's cattle round-up occur before or after he gathered all the Coues deer in AZ and moved them to Texas??

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
Unbeknown to most of the world, the Big Bend country near Marathon, Texas has quite a large number of Coues Deer, particularly in the Glass Mountains.....

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
The fact is the Del Carmine Whitetail is a Coues Deer that was imported from Arizona during the CCC camp days of Roosevelts reconstruction era, when they were making jobs and coming out of the big depression..My Dad, uncles and a number of the old timers in that area, drove those truck loads of deer and dumped them in the Big Bend Park..I have told some high muckley mucks about this, but it landed on deaf ears, the embarrassment was more than they could handle.

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Hey Drum, did Ray's cattle round-up occur before or after he gathered all the Coues deer in AZ and moved them to Texas??

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Originally posted by Fury01:

Seeing as how this is a hunting shooting kind of forum, and not a cowboy and cows forum, you might save your BS meters for those kind of issues you know lots about.....

Don't know "Ray" and don't need to to know roping, throwing, sewing shut eyes and a whole lot of other things were common and quite do-able....

Just because you don't know it or have not seen it does not make it not true...

Best regards,

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stable of unicorn thoroughbreds ridden by leprechaun jockeys

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Originally posted by Fury01:
Understood that you doubt the author as you mentioned but: growing up where and when but mostly with who I did and their elders, I can assure you that the methods wild cattle have been caught and commercialized in some manner, both include and outstrip all the stories that were recounted above. Indeed for most it is hard to believe sometimes from this day and time but it was not these times or these days and definitely not these folks. Hard times made hard ways and indeed, hard people.
I have spent most of my life hanging out with “old” folks. What a privilege it has been. Yes their stories can wander, vary and change a bit over time. But if one searches out the core of the information, say within 1.5 SD from the mean, you will find much wisdom and that many of them have walked paths we can only shake our heads over. To our disadvantage, we have ignored much because of what lies towards the outside of that curve simply because of the lack of ability to believe or understand. I don’t recount too many stories that I witnessed with my Dad for that reason. I am content that I saw him do them and knew when said Uncle Frank’s dad did such and such or so and so, it was a fact.
Also just to help out with understanding from the cowboy side of things, you can do more with a long horned critter on the ground roped around the horns and hind feet stretched out tight on his back with the horns parallel to the ground that can be done in a hydraulic squeeze chute. It’s just a little hard to find a ground man to sew the eyes shut nowadays. In the chute, they still have their legs under them and can yank their head up and down even with the nose tied up like the high dollar black bull in the Vet’s chute described previously. Roped and stretched they can only twist and stretch a bit and they soon tire of that. The horns stabilize the head and then your back to the wondering how good the ground man is.
Best regards to all.