SOUDAN— Fourteen-year-old Jack Anderson had a feeling two weeks ago as the deer season wound down. He had hunted deer before with his grandfather, Frank Gornick, of Soudan, but Frank had died just over a year ago and he had been missing him this deer season.
“It was fun,” said Jack. “I used to hunt with him a lot.”
Then one day, about halfway through the recent deer season, he told his sister that he was going out to get a deer with his grandpa’s gun after getting home from school. “I was just kind of joking, but I had a feeling that I would,” he said. He figured he might have better luck using his grandpa’s gun, and he wore his grandpa’s hunting cap for good measure.
Jack, the son of Mike and Jill Anderson, of Soudan, rode with a buddy out to an area just south of town, where his grandfather and great-grandfather before him had hunted for decades. Jack had been out there the day before and had seen several does, so he went back there to see if a buck might show up this time.
It did, as Jack was walking along the old rail grade. The eight-point buck startled when he first caught sight of Jack and bounded a couple times before stopping to get a better look. It proved a fatal error for the deer as Jack raised his rifle and fired, dropping the deer in its tracks.
“I think grandpa would have been proud,” he said.