Most deer hunters will never encounter a true albino whitetail. The recessive gene that causes albinism is so rare, in fact, that (according to the National Deer Association) it only occurs in an estimated 1 in 30,000 deer born in the wild. Those slim odds lined up for bowhunter Kirk Washington three years ago, however, when he got his first glimpse of an elusive all-white buck in northern Kentucky. Then, late last month—after three seasons of dedicated scouting and all-day sits—Washington finally arrowed the deer at a distance of just 30 yards. Here's the full story of his unlikely hunt.
Washington is a professional archer from Missouri. He says he passed on multiple trophy-class deer over the years while holding out for the albino buck, which he nicknamed Spirit. "I had 34 encounters with him over those three seasons. He stuck out like a soar thumb, but he's the smartest deer I've ever hunted. I think that's what kept him alive all these years," he tells F&S. "This was my ninth trip to Kentucky this season. I have three spots where I hunt him regularly, along with multiple trail cam setups, but he hadn't shown up for six weeks; and I had a limited number of days to hunt before I had to get back home."
Washington didn't have any encounters during his first two hunts of the trip, but on the second day, one of his cameras snapped a picture of the albino buck moving through a piece of bottomland. "At that point I had four days left in my trip, and I decided on all-day sits to cause less intrusion from walking in and out of the stand," he says. "When I went out on the morning of Dec. 31, a giant cold front was coming in."
The front brought 30 mile-per-hour wind gusts and sideways rain. Washington had been in the stand for about two hours, he says, when the white buck appeared on a hillside nearby. "He was working a scent trail like I've seen him do in the past. He dropped behind the hill but eventually got on a ridge top that led into the bottom where my stand was positioned," he recalls. "He was with a younger buck that he seemed to be using as a lookout, and they fed there for about 50 minutes—slowly working toward me until they were just 30 yards from my stand. When the young buck turned to leave, the albino gave me the shot I was looking for."
After the shot, the deer ran off and bedded down about 70 yards from Washington's stand, still highly visible thanks to its all-white coat. Concerned about his arrow placement, he stalked in for a follow-up, shooting the buck again is it tried to regain its footing. "He never knew I was there, which is how I wanted it to be. The whole thing was just an amazing experience from start to finish," says Washington, who's planning a full-body mount of the rare buck jumping over a split rail fence.
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The buck was approximately five-and-a-half years old, Washington says. It had "glass eyes", pink hooves, a pink nose, and white velvet in the off-season trail cam photos that Washington captured—all traits that make it a true albino, according to NDA. "The top of his head was brown," Washington says. "He got that during the rut from rubbing trees and from his scent glands. The tarsals on his knees were also brown, but he was completely white when he wasn't rutting."
