Anderson: On grandpa’s Minnesota farm, a shot and a day of searching yields a rare piebald buck

Of the more than 153,000 whitetail deer felled in Minnesota so far this fall, Mason Rudolph’s was different. This was a buck, and a good one, a nine-pointer. None of that was unusual. It was the animal’s coloring that was surprising, witnessed initially on a misty morning in farm country, during the firearm season’s first week.

From Sauk Rapids originally, Mason, 19, now lives in his family’s cabin on a lake not far from Brainerd, where he attends college. He bow hunts, bird hunts, fishes and, in the cold months, spears through the ice.

A young man for all seasons.

“I’m watching for lake ice just now,’’ he said the other day. “Waiting for it to form to go fishing.’’

Familiar enough with deer hunting in the central Minnesota woods, where in his free time he climbs into a tree with his bow and a quiver of arrows, Mason is perhaps most comfortable hunting whitetails in the state’s farm country, especially in Martin County, along the Minnesota-Iowa border.

“My dad, Nate, my brother, Ty, my two uncles, Guy Rudolph and Nick Smith, and my grandpa, Don, we all hunt on grandpa’s farm in Martin County,’’ Mason said. “It’s a lot of open country planted in corn and soybeans. We mostly hunt creek bottoms.’’

Grandpa’s place lies within Deer Permit Area (DPA) 252, which at 715 square miles is in the moderate size of Department of Natural Resources whitetail management areas.

Last year, about 1,300 firearms hunters scoured DPA 252 for deer, for an average of 1.8 hunters per square mile, which is in the low range for hunter activity. DPA 246, by comparison, which lies just north and west of Brainerd, featured 12 deer hunters per square mile last year.

“On grandpa’s farm, we usually get two or three deer a season,’’ Mason said.

This year’s opening weekend of firearms hunting came and went without Mason firing a shot. He hunted the following Monday, too, then drove home to Brainerd to catch up on schoolwork. On the Wednesday after the opener he returned to southern Minnesota.

Before the season, on trail cameras, the Rudolphs had seen images of a nice buck that showed up a couple of times. But the deer traveled only at night, so the photos were in black and white.

Then one time the buck walked in front of a camera in daytime.

“That’s when we knew the deer looked different,’’ Mason said. “It was piebald. No one around there had seen one before.’’

Though some piebald deer feature physical deformities such as shortened lower jawbones, generally they differ only in their coloring. Mixed among a piebald deer’s brown hair are white hair splotches of varying sizes.

Piebald deer are believed to exist in less than 2% of a whitetail population and are sometimes confused with albino deer, which are rarer still and are entirely white with pink eyes, noses and hooves.

Both parents must carry the gene for piebaldism to produce a piebald deer.

Barb Keller, DNR big game program leader, said there’s no way to estimate the number of these different-looking whitetails in the Minnesota deer population.

“They’re not common,’’ she said. “But they’re not as rare as melanistic deer, which also due to a genetic mutation are colored very dark.’’

On the Thursday morning following the opener, Mason was again in a stand on his grandpa’s farm. With him was his uncle Guy, who owns a seed business in nearby Trimont, Minn.

Misty and dank, the morning was not good for sitting. As daybreak approached, the mist let up, but the morning grew colder.

Mason and his uncle were only briefly chilled, however, because in a short while, from the east, approaching alone, was the piebald buck they had seen on the camera.

Cradling a Savage 220 bolt action 20 gauge, a firearm known to sling slugs accurately at more than 100 yards, Mason was prepared for the moment.

“I could see how bright he was,’’ Mason said. “How he was different colored.’’

When Mason clicked off the safety of his shotgun and touched its trigger, his dream buck was only 10 yards away.

Boom.

But the deer didn’t fall.

Which isn’t unusual — whitetails shot through both lungs and the heart have been known to sprint up to 100 yards before succumbing.

“I waited a half hour before we followed the blood trail, but we bumped him when we caught up to him and he ran, so I went back my to stand and waited another hour and a half,’’ Mason said. “There was so much blood I couldn’t believe he was still moving.’’

After lunch, a neighbor granted permission to canvass his land for the buck, and the search was expanded.

Finally, at 4 p.m., to Mason’s great relief, the once-in-a-lifetime buck was found.

“He was about 700 yards from where I shot him,’’ Mason said. “My shot ended up being right behind the right shoulder, where I was aiming. But because of the downward angle, I guess, the slug hit only one lung and his liver.’’

Mason’s 2024 deer hunt will be remembered in part because it furthered the tradition of hunting with his dad, his brother, his grandpa and other relatives.

And in part because he’s having a full body mount made of his unusual buck.

All that remains is the small matter of where to display the taxidermied animal.

“My mom said she doesn’t want it in the living room or kitchen or any place like that,’’ Mason said.

“So for now I’ll keep it in my room.’’