A young doe came down the hill about a hundred yards away from us.
It was late Thanksgiving Day morning as I spotted the deer from my stand where my son Ross and I sat. He had just joined me a few minutes earlier.
"I wish that deer had some friends," Ross wryly remarked as we watched it nibble on some brush.
Suddenly I saw the doe's friend. An 8-point buck was following the same path. It stopped near the doe in some thick brush.
"Ross, it's a nice buck," I whispered.
I had already filled my buck tag on opening day when I shot a 10-pointer with a 15-inch spread. The same morning my dad, Bob Hardie, bagged a monster 10-pointer with tall, thick beams and an 18-inch spread. Ross had taken a doe two days earlier but was still looking for a buck. Ross, 22, had shot quite a few does in his eight years hunting but had yet to shoot a buck. Opportunities are limited because we don't kill the young bucks on our farm.
Here was his chance.
Ross drew up his rifle, took aim and fired. The doe took off but the buck stood. Ross had missed. The buck ran back up the hill from where it came and stopped behind some trees.
"Ross, he's still there," I said, having a better vantage point.
My son took aim again and fired. The buck ran off. Our hearts sank - at least mine did.
"Stop and look at the last place you saw him," I said. "We'll go down and look for blood."
We walked down the hill and started scouring the leaves, looking for telltale traces of red. Thankfully there was a slight crust of snow and ice that would help make the blood more visible. Ross went to the spot where he had last seen the buck and found some blood.
The trail was pretty consistent and we followed it up a hill, across four fences and an open field. Shortly after the last fence we found the buck. He had fallen into the creek bed, where he died. He had been shot through the neck.
It was a special moment between father and son, just as it was 30 years earlier when I shot my first buck from my father's stand.
Killing a buck didn't make my son a man. He's already a fine man. Killing a buck helped complete a hunting circle that goes back at least four generations.
Hunting teaches you that no matter whom you are or what you have accomplished in life, in the woods you're just another hunter huddled under a tree hoping for the big buck to cross your path. Hunting has taught me humility, the virtue of patience and a deep appreciation for creation, bundled with the value of tradition and family.
This was my 35th gun deer hunting season in Wisconsin. I've never missed a year since I turned 12 and was able to join the redcoat army in the woods. It's my dad's 61st season. He too has never missed a hunt, even in the early days when deer were scarce. It was quite unusual when my grandfather Keith Hardie shot a buck on our family farm in western Jackson County in the late 1940s. Grandpa died in 1994, but my son became the next generation of hunters when he joined us in 2002 at the age of 14.
No, it's not the thrill of the kill that draws me to hunting, but the time I've spent in the cold November woods sitting by my father or grandfather, sharing a bond that transcends the pulling of a trigger.
I know my son - and his grandfather - feels the same.
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