• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ranch Roping

N

needtolearn

Active member
Joined
Apr 4, 2006
Messages
36
Location
Jackson County
Ok, the time of year for this must be coming soon. A couple years ago my hubby and I got invited to a ranch roping when we were up at Cammack's big summer shingdig.

We both loved it. I don't rope, but the man of the house loves roping. But we both fell in love with it. I have wanted to attend more, but never am in the right place to hear about them.

Please if anyone does this stuff regularly from the Pierre to Rapid City area, please please please please let me know.

I love the atmosphere; the couple I've been lucky enough to attend are so much more family friendly than the regular rodeos. Don't get me wrong, I love rodeos, but I love the time and easy stride of ranch roping. You can watch forever as a loop snakes out to land so softly on a calf's neck. I don't know. It feels as though if you could just focus on the slowlmoving rope just long enough, you'd slide back and find yourself in the old days.

I LOVE ranch roping. So please be an enabler, and help feed my addiction!
 
needtolearn said:
Jinglebob! Where are you? Help, help. Damsel in distress! :D
Click to expand...

I'm always ready to help a damsel in distress. Especially ones that wear a dress! :wink:

I believe we've met before as I think I am the one who invited you to the roping at Cary Shmidts. I got a quirt from your husband, as I recall, at the roping.

Ain't been a lot going on yet and there weren't too many held last summer. We were all to poor to go very far.

There are getting to be a few in Nebraska and we just get together and rope mainly, around here. We did get together a few times last winter and there was one at Rapid, during the Stockshow.

But if I hear of any I'll sure post them on here. And if your headed up anywheres in this area, give us a holler and we'll just have to do some roping! :D

I live just north of Cammacks about 8 miles off a tarred road. I just love to ranch rope. Especially if it don't cost me any money! :wink:

We've got several guys and myself who do this with our calves at branding time. Head and heel them and then switch the head rope to the front feet and hold the calf. It goes as fast as nordforks, but takes a little bigger crew. But shoot, we don't hurry and get done by noon and brag on how many we get done in a moring. We just take our time and rope all day long. :wink:
 
Jinglebob, that sounds like my kind of branding. I never could figure out what the big hurry was to get done. All everyone does is sit around and eat and talk afterwards. I like it slow so young horses can have a chance to learn the ropes and mistakes aren't made.

After all, branding day is something you live with the rest of the year. It is probably the MOST important day of all. (Second only to shipping day.) That's just MHO.
 
Faster horses said:
Jinglebob, that sounds like my kind of branding. I never could figure out what the big hurry was to get done. All everyone does is sit around and eat and talk afterwards. I like it slow so young horses can have a chance to learn the ropes and mistakes aren't made.

After all, branding day is something you live with the rest of the year. It is probably the MOST important day of all. (Second only to shipping day.) That's just MHO.
Click to expand...

Yup, it always seemed to me, that it was more a celebation, than a job that needed to be done. When you take your time, you have more time to train on kid, colts and crew and there seem to be fewer mistakes made.
 
Ok I know you shouldn't judge a man by the length of his rope but er how long is it lol. Nothing more entertaining than trying to watch yours truly roping with a 60 footer-40 is about my limit lol.
 
I miss half as much with a 60 footer because it takes me twice as long to coil-guyus who can rope with 60 feet can fish with a flyrod-guys like me who use a 30 footer i n the branding pen better stick to spinning reels lol.
 
There are some here that ranch rope (none of us we are team ropers). I know there was one at the Stockshow. I've heard the guys around here go to Wyoming to some not sure where though.
 
They have a circuit around here that is in central/eastern MT and down into Wyoming that ends in October at the Nile. The cost of fuel might hurt. Cattleplus used to carry the schedule on their site, not sure if they still do or not.
JB's branding is the way to go, slow down and have fun. We usually do that with the young cows, let the kids rope, do everything they can and we take pictures and yell at them once in a while. No stress, teaching and training. Then you invite a bigger crew for the bigger herd and they all think it's a race to get the best day of the year over with. Go figure. I'm rethinking alot of things lately, maybe for the big branding I should do all of the roping and have Hanta and MCG do the ground work with one of Soapweeds contraptions. Course then I could not take any pictures :wink:
 
I used to just love to go to brandings. When I was a kid, brandings were smaller affairs with less cattle than now. It was always just a relaxing time, and lots of fun. If the weather was bad, the brandings got postponed until a better day. Anymore, everybody has way more cattle than they used, and many times branding crews come up short-handed. Sometimes they turn into marathons of hard work and hunger pangs that hit long before mealtime. Rain, shine, sleet, snow, or a fifty mile an hour wind, they are pulled off no matter what, because if you miss your day, it might be weeks before you get another chance.

One thing about brandings, labor always has a much more enjoyable time than management. :wink: As I get older, it just seems like a whole lot more work and a lot less fun. With our new contraption, it's not nearly as stressful. Our own little crew just bites off whatever size bunch we think we can get done. If it's too hot, too cold, too rainy or too windy, we just don't have to do it. We still get to rope the calves, and everything gets done the way we want it to. We can be easy with the cattle, and we don't have to contend with someone showing up with a bullwhip or a cow dog. I know I'm getting old and grouchy, but this system kind of fits my attitude. :wink:
 
Soapweed said:
I used to just love to go to brandings. When I was a kid, brandings were smaller affairs with less cattle than now. It was always just a relaxing time, and lots of fun. If the weather was bad, the brandings got postponed until a better day. Anymore, everybody has way more cattle than they used, and many times branding crews come up short-handed. Sometimes they turn into marathons of hard work and hunger pangs that hit long before mealtime. Rain, shine, sleet, snow, or a fifty mile an hour wind, they are pulled off no matter what, because if you miss your day, it might be weeks before you get another chance.

One thing about brandings, labor always has a much more enjoyable time than management. :wink: As I get older, it just seems like a whole lot more work and a lot less fun. With our new contraption, it's not nearly as stressful. Our own little crew just bites off whatever size bunch we think we can get done. If it's too hot, too cold, too rainy or too windy, we just don't have to do it. We still get to rope the calves, and everything gets done the way we want it to. We can be easy with the cattle, and we don't have to contend with someone showing up with a bullwhip or a cow dog. I know I'm getting old and grouchy, but this system kind of fits my attitude. :wink:
Click to expand...

Cranky ol' poop! :P

:wink:


Yup, with neighboring comes some pain. But I feel that, that is what made this part of the country and I sure hate to lose it.

A couple of guys who are about 10 years older than me, used to talk about how great it would be to pull out a wagon in the spring and start at one end of our section of the country and brand for a week or two until we got everybody done. Sounded real good, until we started to figure out the logistics. Must be why we never did it. :wink:

Everybody ought to get to brand their own calves how ever they see fit and there always seems to be someone at the branding who isn't quite satisfied about how some part of it was done. My wife say's it's me! :shock: :lol:

I don't give a dang how the other guy does it. If he helps me, I help him, but there are a couple of ways of doing it, I don't enjoy as much as I used too! :wink: And I resere the right to whine and complain!

I know there are several places I don't go to anymore, as it just ain't no fun no more. And I'm lucky in that I can get by with a small crew, but most of the guys I help, pay me back by helping me ship or doctoring, when I get some cattle during the summer and I ain't got no help.

When I switched over to mainly running stockers, several of the guys I'd been helpin' complained that they couldn't get me to come to their brandings, as they couldn't pay me back by coming to mine, as I didn't need much help. I straightened them out quick, that I still needed help, just not at branding. They all decided that the pay back of having to help me ship and pasture rope was worth it! :wink:

But no matter how it is done, I like to see good hands doing it and helping to make more good hands that are just learning the "ropes". :-)

And Soapweed, if it weren't for us cranky ol' poops, how would them young whippersnappers ever learn when they were doing something wrong? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
I like to go to brandings where I don't have to work to hard, they rope the calves, use nordforks, heat the irons with a wood fire, don't sort the cows off and there's plenty of beer and good food :-)
 
Speaking of going out in the wagon, Haythorn's did that when we worked there for a short time. I'm glad my man has the in his list of great memories.

I'm the dreamer in our partnership, and I'm always coming up with wild schemes for making some cash, but mostly having a grand time doing it. :D It's the Irish in me. But a couple weeks back, my hubby came to me with a wild idea. I guess sometimes we dreamers are contagious.

He thought it would be fun to get an old chuckwagon you could haul out to someone's branding or fall works and do all the cooking for it. Keep a bit of the old ways lingering on, and feed the folks, and just maybe make a couple bucks. I don't know if it would make money, but it would be fun.
 
Tumbleweed said:
I like to go to brandings where I don't have to work to hard, they rope the calves, use nordforks, heat the irons with a wood fire, don't sort the cows off and there's plenty of beer and good food :-)
Click to expand...

I was wondering why I hadn't been seeing you at too many brandings, lately. :???:






:wink:


:lol: :lol:
 
needtolearn said:
Speaking of going out in the wagon, Haythorn's did that when we worked there for a short time. I'm glad my man has the in his list of great memories.

I'm the dreamer in our partnership, and I'm always coming up with wild schemes for making some cash, but mostly having a grand time doing it. :D It's the Irish in me. But a couple weeks back, my hubby came to me with a wild idea. I guess sometimes we dreamers are contagious.

He thought it would be fun to get an old chuckwagon you could haul out to someone's branding or fall works and do all the cooking for it. Keep a bit of the old ways lingering on, and feed the folks, and just maybe make a couple bucks. I don't know if it would make money, but it would be fun.
Click to expand...

There is a feller who did that at several places around the country. He lives not too far from you. His name is Steve Tolton. Tumbleweed hired him to feed us one year, that way. Food was good.

Walt Hoffman used to hire out to camp cook for shearing and branding crews, before he died. I swamped for him one year at a dog trial, they had near here. He taught me how to make cobbler with a dutch oven over the coals. I still make one, once in awhile, just to remember how. Only problem when Walt was the cook, he wasn't near cranky enough! And his food was dang sure good, too.

My friend up north pulled a wagon out and we camped among the cattle and got up in the moring and went to work. He had several different cooks, over the years I helped him. The food was always real good, tho' one year, quite a few of the neighbors who showed up, came back to the camp for supper, and the cook hadn't prepared for that many. We didn't starve, but some sure would have eaten more, if they had, had the chance. Funny, he had a different cook, the next year.

Only thing I know for sure about chuckwagon cooking is, it's a lot of work! :wink: :lol:
 

Latest posts

Back
Top