OREGON | NOSLER HEADQUARTERS

I stepped out of my truck into the inky blur of predawn light on a Thanksgiving morning, and it felt like the 15 degrees the thermometer had indicated. While the Hudson Valley had received a rain storm, the Catskill Mountains — specifically those locales above 2,000 feet in elevation — had been carpeted in snow, roughly two inches, perfect for tracking. I hadn’t gone a quarter-mile down the logging trail when I came across prints from a doe and her fawn coming down off the hill to my right. Within another 50 paces, the huge track of what could only be a buck joined the trail, drifting slightly left and right like a heat-seeking missile.

She was obviously a hot doe, and I was no longer concerned about the 15-mph wind and blowing snow.

With the tracks just minutes old, I followed on cautiously, a steely focus narrowing. This scenario had my undivided attention. Stopping before a small rise in the trail, the slightest glimpse of a heavy set of antlers caught my eye, disappearing behind a downed beech tree. The rifle came to shoulder effortlessly, and the instant he cleared the obstruction, my .308 Winchester sent a 165-grain Nosler Partition into his vitals. I soon stood over a beautiful eight-point buck surrounded by the idyllic Catskill Mountains, cradling a rifle handed down to me by my father. He had stopped hunting a couple years earlier, but I’ve carried on our Thanksgiving Day hunting tradition.

“There are big bears up there; load some Partitions for that hunt,” he’d always say. Dad was, as usual, correct.

My dad and I are business partners, and have hunted all over the world together, so I can appreciate the trials, tribulations and rewards of a...