Cool Buck From The LBL.

[redarrow]

Got these pics from my buddy in Ky. Buck was taken with a bow on Dec. 2nd. Not sure who the shooter was.

[alloutdoors]

That's awesome! I'd have to get a full body mount of that one. 

[redarrow]

That's awesome! I'd have to get a full body mount of that one. 

Maybe 10 years ago I saw a piebald buck at the edge of a cut corn field while driving down the road. This past year on my way to deer camp I stopped at a bait shop on the same road. As you walk in the door the first thing you see is a full body mount of a piebald buck jumping a fence.The lady that runs the shop said it was shot about 10 years ago in a cornfield just down the road. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I'll never know for sure but it will always make me wonder.

[Hognutz]

That is really a neat looking buck. And, he is a stinkin' toad, on top of it. Thanks for sharing, Red..

[El Pavo Grande]

 

That's awesome! I'd have to get a full body mount of that one. 

X2. 

[chatterbox]

Awesome buck for sure!

[beagler]

Fantastic Buck!

[TrackeySauresRex]

  wow! Congrats to that hunter.

[headbanger]

That is a beautiful animal and a stud to boot!

[surehuntsalot]

he will make a beautiful mount.....congrats on a very unique trophy

[spurman]

Buck: 152 2/8-inch Gross Typical
Hunter: Justin Smith
Location: Marshall County, Kentucky
Time of Year: December 1, 2013
Weapon: Mathews Z7, G5 T3 Broadheads

Justin Smith's piebald buck from LBL.

Benton, Ky., resident Justin Smith has spent his fair share of time in a treestand in nearby Land Between the Lakes – called "LBL" by the locals – over the years. At 170,000 acres spanning across portions of western Kentucky and northwest Tennessee, there's room to roam here. And deer to be hunted. But it's not easy country. Most of it consists of rolling, forested hills, and compared to surrounding private lands, deer densities are pretty low.

The successful hunters here tend to break apart small, productive areas and focus their efforts on them. And that's exactly what Smith has done. He has a favorite spot – a favorite tree, actually – that's he's been hunting for the past 14 or 15 years. He's killed some good bucks there, including a 178-incher back in 2007. He says the area is really nothing more than a good deer trail that leads into a dense thicket.

The Sunday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, Dec. 1, found Smith perched high in his favorite tree near that thicket. Conditions weren't exactly ideal for late-season deer movement. It was cloudy and balmy, and Smith said it seemed to take forever for it to finally get daylight. But less than an hour after shooting light, he spotted a deer slipping down a road bed 50 yards away.

"I could tell it was a good buck, but he looked unusual," Smith said.

Years ago, a herd of fallow deer was established in portions of LBL, and some of those animals live there to this day. They're off-limits to hunting. "I thought maybe the buck was a fallow deer at first, but when I got a good look at the rack, I could tell he was definitely a whitetail. But still, his coat looked strange," Smith said.

Smith's buck gross-scored 152 and change. The buck worked closer, and finally gave Smith an open shot at 40 yards. By this point, judging by the animal's odd appearance, Smith wondered if maybe the buck had the mange. "I just really couldn't tell, but I knew I could make that shot at 40 yards, so I focused on that," he said. "When I shot, it sounded like I'd hit a watermelon, and I thought, 'Oh no, I gut-shot him.' But he ran a little ways, stopped, and then fell right over."

Turns out, the buck had been quartering slightly to him at the shot. The entrance was perfect, though the arrow did exit through the paunch. "Hey, I guess I just got a little excited," Smith admits.

But there was more excitement to come. Upon recovering the animal, Smith realized that the unusual coat wasn't from the mange. It was because the buck was piebald, an exceedingly rare recessive genetic trait that causes a lack of pigment in much of the deer's coat. Biologists estimate that the piebald color phase occurs in less than 1 percent of all wild whitetails.

But there's more. Smith's buck sported one heck of a rack too. It's a mainframe 9-pointer with two kickers on his brow tines. The buck gross-scored 152. What public-land bowhunter wouldn't be proud of a deer like that? It's truly the trophy of a lifetime.

Despite the fact that the area has long been one of Smith's favorite hunting spots, he didn't know the piebald buck lived there. But plenty of other hunters did. "When we brought him out, there were several other hunters waiting at my truck to see him," he said. "This deer had been seen a lot, and had his picture taken a lot. Best I could tell, there were at least eight other hunters hunting this deer in that area that morning."

Smith says he plans to have a full-body mount done of the deer. "It'll be expensive, but I doubt I'll get another buck like this any time soon," he says.

Major congrats to the lucky hunter, and a big thanks from us at Realtree for sharing the story.

Have a big buck story you want to share? E-mail us at rackreport [at] realtree [dot] com.

[redarrow]

Hey Spurman. Thanks for posting the "rest of the story". I've walked the LBL from end to end turkey hunting but ain't never seen anything like that buck.By buddy is from Cadiz and deer hunts there.

[troutfisher13111]

Wow, what a unique and gorgeous animal.

[Gold Spur]

Wow, what a unique and gorgeous animal.

X2, it's defiantly worth mounting.

[Brian811]

That definitely calls for a full body mount. Very unique