Jake Hilliard waited four years to get his hunting license.

He waited five hours to get his first deer.

The Butler boy bagged a doe at 10:30 a.m. Dec. 7 on his 12th birthday — the first day he was eligible to hunt.

"We've been taking him with us on hunting trips since he was 8," said Larry Young, Hilliard's grandfather. "Hunting has been a longtime tradition in his family."

Don Hilliard, Jake's father, said his great-great-grandfather hunted and the sport has been passed down from generation to generation.

"It may even go beyond him, but I don't know," Don Hilliard said. "Jake couldn't wait until he was old enough."

Don Hilliard had asked the Pennsylvania Game Commission if his son could begin hunting on the first day of deer-gun season since he was turning 12 during the season.

The Game Commission ruled that he was ineligible until his 12th birthday.

"That stunk, but I just had to wait," Jake Hilliard said. "I didn't think I'd get a deer this year, since I only had four days."

He didn't get just one — he got two.

The Hilliard family has a camp in Forest County and they took Jake up there the night before his birthday. They headed to the tree-stand at 5 a.m. Dec. 7.

"I was up most of the night," Jake Hilliard said. "I just couldn't sleep. I waited for this day forever."

Hilliard and his father were walking up a road when they spotted a doe bedded down near a ridge, approximately 90 yards away.

"Dad let me take the shot and I got it," the young Hilliard said.

Young also was there that day to see his grandson get his first deer. Hilliard's other grandfather was there the following day to see him bag a buck.

At 1 p.m. Dec. 8, young Hilliard saw a deer running across a field, 140 yards away.

"It leaped in the air, I took a shot and got him in the back," he said. "I thought it was a doe at first, but when I got up close, I saw it was a buck that had already shed its rack."

Two days of hunting eligibility, two deer.

"What I liked about it was his father and both grandfathers got to see him do it," Young said.

Jake Hilliard's cousin, 8-year-old Trevor, joined the family for his first hunting trip this season.

"We'll be going through this all over again with him," Young said.

While Jake Hilliard is happy to get two deer, he doesn't believe he's finished yet.

Muzzle-loader season begins the day after Christmas.

"I'll be out there," he said. "I want a buck with a rack this time."