Melanistic Buck
Contributors to this thread:Whitetail Deer
From: DL
15-Jul-19
Somewhere in Texas. Beautiful color.
From: deerslayer
15-Jul-19
Man, that is super cool. Way prettier than an albino IMO.
From: t-roy
15-Jul-19
Cool looking deer. Hopefully, he doesn’t get shot because “Black Bucks Lives Matter”
From: Scar Finga
15-Jul-19
T-Roy, why you gotta bring color into this... LOL
That is one beautiful animal, man I would be conflicted with shooting it or not! But what an awesome mount he would make!
From: Grunter
15-Jul-19
Pretty awesome looking! Must be from last year? Antlers are polished. I've got lots of black squirrels but never seen a deer like that
From: wildwilderness
15-Jul-19
From Texas, it probably crossed with a fallow or some other exotic, but that may be bringing LGBTQ into it.......
From: KSflatlander
15-Jul-19
LBGTQ...stupid comment.
From: DL
15-Jul-19
I saw a melanistic desert Bighorn on my sheep hunt. Wanted him in the worst way. He was really old and so badly broken off that he probably wasn’t legal. I could only see his horns when he was in the shadows.
From: GED
15-Jul-19
Rare and naturally occurring. Shoot away
From: RK
15-Jul-19
I don't know for sure where that one is located but the largest area in Texas for melonistic deer is an area just south of Austin west of a town called Buda
Lots of them in that area. Just a black color phase of a whitetail deer. They are cool to see
From: Scar Finga
15-Jul-19
WHAT KS SAID!
From: WV Mountaineer
15-Jul-19
That is a cool looking deer.
From: LKH
15-Jul-19
I've seen photos of somewhat melanistic deer but never to that degree.
From: midwest
16-Jul-19
"Hopefully, he doesn’t get shot because “Black Bucks Lives Matter” "
t-roy, apparently not in Iowa. You can't kill the white ones but the black one's are legal game! ;-)
From: Ambush
16-Jul-19
Call me a jerk, but I’d shoot him in a flash and have him mounted. He’s dead, gone and forgotten in a few years tops anyway.
From: deerslayer
16-Jul-19
^ Yep, yep!!
From: TrapperKayak
16-Jul-19
^True, but he passes on genes, so not really true. Still I support the option to shoot if legal, even though I would be torn. He's pretty cool.
From: Ambush
16-Jul-19
I’d be torn too.
Left facing, right facing or full body mount!?!
From: TrapperKayak
16-Jul-19
I shot a 'blue' bear once and got it tanned. Brownish gray with blue-grey undercoat. Not real common either.
From: RK
16-Jul-19
Guys. No worries on that deer being really rare. In several areas there are good numbers. Nothing unusual or unique in seeing them. IF that is Texas
From: TEXASWOODS5
17-Jul-19
Living in the hill country of Texas I would say without a doubt that's a Texas hill country deer. I've seen a few they're definitely cool looking. Several years ago by my house I saw a buck about that same size a was hoping to get him when season came. Unfortunately one day going to work I found him still alive stuck in a fence and a pack of dogs eating his hind quarter.
From: Junior
17-Jul-19
Got to be fake news....lol...cool looking!
From: stealthycat
17-Jul-19
rarer than albinism IIRC
From: milnrick
17-Jul-19
Definitely not fake news.
I'm pretty sure that buck is somewhere near the Comal/Bexar/Guadalupe county lines in the Garden Ridge area.
Millie and I had a couple of melanastic deer (buck and doe fawns) born in our yard where we still lived in Fardrn Ridge. The fawn died as a 1 yr old when she was hit by car. The buck stayed in our neighborhood for 2 years (first set of antlers were 2x2, second set 3x4), until he got his butt whipped in a fight and relocated.
The neatest thing about melanistic deer was that the fawns had darker (near black) spots.
Pretty sure I posted pics of the fawns and Expresso with his first set of antlers several years ago (probably 7 maybe 8 years back).
From: Highlife
18-Jul-19
I would imagine they taste the same . Would make my taxidermist very very happy. Yup I'm shooting it .
From: Shaft
18-Jul-19
I didn't realize that the eyes, and hoofs got that dark on a melanistic deer.
From: ahunter76
18-Jul-19
My brother & I saw one with 2 normal Bucks long ago in Illinois. Yes, either one of us would have taken him. There was one fully mounted at the Iowa Deer/Turkey expo several years ago that had been taken by a bowhunter.
From: Bowbender8
20-Jul-19
I'd love to have that trophy! I'd also be happy with a piebald that has lots of white. Oh heck. If it's brown it's down!
From: Zbone
23-Jul-19
There is an area somewhere around Houston (I think was the city) that has a high concentration of melanistic deer...
From: ROUGHCOUNTRY
24-Jul-19
Rarer than albino and you would have offers to buy the lifesize cape etc..... from sporting goods stores.
From: rooster
26-Jul-19
Drove by, actually around, a road killed melanistic deer last Saturday. First I've ever seen.
From: jackblack66
12-Aug-19
hey guys.these are actually my photos from my trail cam.we are in luling texas.the update on this buck is that we did not harvest him.i did see some pics of him after season so he at least survived hunting season...i am putting out the camaras this week.ill post any pics i might get of hime..he will be a 31/2 y/o this year.our neighbors have got photos of 3 more .one doe,a yearling buck and a 3 1/2 y/o atypical buck.if hes there he will be really nice buck..ive named him tyson..
From: squid
12-Aug-19
I moved to Texas about 5 years ago and rented a home west of Austin as our home was being built. We would see several melanistic deer per week living there. Turns out Hays county in TX has the highest concentration of them in the US. Since our house has been built, I have seen a few on our property which is a little further west but still in the same county. We have seen them from chocolate colored all the way to jet black like the one posted.
Pic of a lighter chocolate colored one we called blackfoot as there was no white on his feet and almost no white anywhere on his body.
From: Scrappy
12-Aug-19
I got a few pics of a really dark buck a few years ago.
From: GED
13-Aug-19
Those are normal deer scrappy ^^^
From: Scrappy
13-Aug-19
Pics are not showing how dark he was. There was other deer around that morning and I was like dang that deer is dark. Not saying he was melanistic just really cool colored.
