The material and attendant photo illustrations found on this website are copyrighted © 2005 by R. J. Sagely. The reprinting or distribution of the whole or any part without express permission of the author is prohibited. This notice supercedes any other copyright notices and dates found herein.

How Many Ways Can You Catch A Cow?
compiled and written by Bob Sagely

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How many ways can you swing a rope to catch a cow? How many different shots can you actually take at the head or the heels of the bovine beast? At last count, I was working on what I would count as over 4 dozen different head and heel  catches. I count it as separate if it can be delivered from various positions around a cow. In the world of traditional vaquero style roping a catch literally can be made from any position around the critter to be caught, often at a distance of fifteen feet or more. This is done using the long reata (ocho brazos o más, which is eight arm spans, meaning around 50 feet or more) made of rawhide or maguey or the more modern materials like nylon and polyester. So though it is legitimate to count a shot from a spot close up as different from the same angle only further away, in my count I have not done so.  Both head (a cabeza) and heel (piales) shots are made using forehand, backhand, houlihan and slip swings - a half swing without a full revolution of the loop. Using these different swings, different angles on these swings and different release effects by rolling the wrist, cutting short your follow through or stopping the spoke with a short pull on the spoke, you can face the cow or turn your back to it and catch it from a standstill or while moving. The variety of catches is probably only limited by the imagination or skill of the roper.

A catch made from a different quarter or angle using a similar swing and delivery counts as a different catch. Distance adds to the variety and maybe you could make a case for distance or position not counting as a different catch. But experience has shown me that the swing and the release have different dynamics as you get out further from the animal or change the quarter from which you make your attempt. And when you start “dropping a coil”, or two or three, to reach out and cover even more distance, I think it qualifies a shot from the same angle at the same end of the cow as a “different” catch the further out you get. That would raise the number for me, so my seeming boast above is on the conservative side. I'll temper it by saying I can catch a lot more dummy cattle, a lot more consistently, with all these tosses than I can live cattle. But when a shot presents itself, I at least have something in my warbag to toss out there and when it catches... ahhhhh... ¡Está bueno!

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The material and attendant photo illustrations found on this website are copyrighted © 2005 by R. J. Sagely. The reprinting or distribution of the whole or any part without express permission of the author is prohibited. This notice supercedes any other copyright notices and dates found herein.