I had the pleasure of "guiding" one of my best friends sons this weekend. 10 year old Carter and his brother came over to hunt from Ohio. His brother almost got a shot at this buck on Saturday morning, but the combines rolled over the hill and scared the buck off just before he got a shot. Yesterday evening this buck stepped out just 15 yards from Carter and I in a ground blind and Carter let his muzzleloader eat. This was one really cool deer. His coat is extremely dark. His legs were almost solid black and he had a jet black mane down the back of his neck. He will make an awesome looking mount on the wall.

Myself and my young buddy Carter with his cool buck.

Nice!

Good going Carter. Keep up the good efforts Dec.

Congrats to Carter!

Good on ya DEC!

Congrats to the young man and to you for getting him involved.

Great looking deer!

Congrats!

Congrats on a Great first buck!

Awesome!!!!

Love it that's awesome! Congrats to him!

Cograts on a nice buck, way too help the youth out DEC

Nice - you get it on video?

No. No video Bean. This happened just crazy fast. By the time I realized what was going to go down and helped Carter get his gun in position, it was over. Camera angle would have been terrible too as it was on our extreme right, the camera man's side of the blind. I wish it had been on video though. It gets tough some times trying to both guide a kid and video. Most times it doesn't work out that both a shot and video happen.

awesome job. Young man means business. Cool buck as well.

Great Job on stepping up and leading the next generation into a life long passion. Awesome Buck, Congrats.

What a fine buck! Congrats!

Good on for the youth!!!! that's a dandy

Congrats and what a kewl lookin coat on that Buck, Nice rack too

Great buck with a great rack congrats!
I have seen dart colored deer from up north, but you are in T-shirts. Did you have a heat wave up there or did he take this great deer from somewhere it is warm?

Awesome....great job young man

Up north ... Steuben County.

Due to not the best shot placement we backed out Saturday night and recovered it Sunday morning. Sunday morning it was very warm.

The photo is in my back yard at my house, about 10 yards from my barn on Sunday morning after we got him home. It was probably 60 degrees out when that photo was taken. So yea, a heat wave on the edge of that massive storm that came through Sunday afternoon.

Congrats on a fine deer... By the picture, it looks like a very rare "Melanistic" Buck... These deer are more rare then albinos and piebalds...

http://www.northamericanwhitetail.com/2010/09/22/weirdwhitetails_wt_1201melanistic/


A truly unique deer and something this young man will remember forever...

I think it does have some melanistic traits. They can vary from all black to a black/gray deer with more traditional white markings.

I have personally been hunting this farm for 17 years now and I have never seen a deer this color or even remotely close to this color. I made a conscious effort this year to not run trail cams on this property. I decided I wanted to return the element of surprise back into my hunting ... boy was I surprised! This was just one very cool deer. I do know a neighbor who was running cameras and knew of the deer, I found out the other day. I am going to hit him up to see if I can get a copy of his trail cam photos of the deer for the young man.

I do know that the young man's dad is going to do one of two things. Either a shoulder mount and have the balance of the hide tanned, or do a euro mount and have the entire hide tanned. Either way not one square inch of the hide is going to be discarded.

That is very cool to hear that... He will have a story to tell with the actual hide and head to show with it....

That is a cool looking buck! Congrats to the young hunter!