OUTDOORS -- Marsh column

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on December 11, 2016 1:45 AM

• Print
• Email

Few of North Carolina's game mammals come in assorted color variations. The one with the most different color phases is the fox squirrel. It has so many color phases in the Southeast because it evolved with frequent fire that changes the habitat suddenly, requiring different camouflage adaptations in a hurry in order to survive.

The black bear has color phases throughout its range -- blonde, cinnamon, brown and others -- but not in North Carolina. The smallest splotch of white in the center of a bear's chest raises the eyebrows of hunters and makes the animal a mountable trophy no matter its size.

The coyote has color variants, the most striking of which is jet black. However, it is not a game animal. Likewise, the feral pig is not a game animal, but an escaped domestic animal with a mixed pedigree.

That leaves us with white-tailed deer in second place in the "horse of a different color" category. If you believe all deer look the same, think again. Biologists refer to a deer with a scattered patchwork of buckskin-tan and white that make it look like a paint pony "piebald."

Depending upon where they are hunting in North Carolina, the odds of a hunter seeing a piebald deer can run from a bit possible to extremely rare. Isolated populations of the animals with the recessive genetics for the color variation occur routinely in several places, but can pop up anywhere. Some hunters protect such deer, while others shoot them on sight to remove their genes from the population.

Either way, piebald deer are going to continue to be born somewhere, sometime.

The first one I saw was taken by a hunter at Holly Shelter Game Land in Pender County a few miles from my hunting property. It was a buck with set of spike antlers, so it was barely a buck. Yet, the hunter still mounted its head and shoulders, and displayed it proudly in his archery shop.

That was many years ago and I have not seen one that came from the area since that time, which was more than 30 years ago. I have seen one or two with an out-of-place white splotch on occasion, but not an overall pattern on its body that I would call piebald.

I had seen a deer at one of my stands that had an unusual facial pattern. It was a doe and her face had numerous small white spots, about the size of the case head of a 12-gauge shotgun shell.

The images I viewed were on a game camera, but I thought nothing of them because they were taken at night and could have been shadows or problems with the flash unit of the camera. Also, I had the passing thought that the deer was a fawn that had not quite lost all of its spots for one reason or another, perhaps a delayed puberty.

Having given up on seeing the massive buck I try to take each season, but seldom succeed in doing, I found myself ready to put some tasty doe steaks in the freezer for the coming year's fine dining. Evening was falling like a lady-of-the-night's purple eyelashes and a haze was covering the green field of rye and clover when a doe stepped out of the trees along the edge.

I checked the animal for antlers, right down to the hair-covered buttons of a fawn buck. Verifying the deer's female status, I downed her with my Remington 700 bolt-action .30-06. I sat for awhile, waiting for another deer to show, perhaps even the buck with nice headgear I had been waiting for, having seen him only once on camera in the middle of the night all season long.

Once legal shooting light slunk completely away, I climbed down from my stand and walked to the deer. Although I had not seen them through the scope in the fog, I saw the spots on the doe's face once I illuminated it with the beam of my headlamp. I went to the Ford pickup truck and drove to the deer then hauled my camera out of its case.

While the doe may not have been piebald in the purest sense of the term, its head and face were polka-dotted with round, white spots. I would have to say its face was piebald while the rest of its body coloration was normal, making the deer unique.

It is doubtful I will ever see another one like it, again.

To contact Mike Marsh or order his books (Fishing North Carolina, autographed, inscribed, $26.60 ppd; Inshore Angler-Carolina's Small Boat Fishing Guide, $26.20; Offshore Angler-Coastal Carolina's Mackerel Boat Fishing Guide, $22.20 and Carolina Hunting Adventures- Quest for the Limit, $15) send check or MO to 1502 Ebb Dr., Wilmington, NC 28409 or visit www.mikemarshoutdoors.com for credit card orders.