Sitting stoically in front of his kitchen window, Jesse Mascarenas was modest about his younger years of hunting.

“Were you excited when you shot that big bull?” his grandson Tony Grajeda asked.

“No,” Mascarenas replied, gesturing to the living room wall. “I probably shot him from here to the front door.”

And shot him in the head, nonetheless. That way, he wouldn’t waste any meat.

For the now 86-year-old Mascarenas, hunting big game deer and elk was all about the meat. And with seven youngsters to feed, Mascarenas put in his time in the field with the .30-6.

As a young man, he came to Craig in 1939 after leaving a sheep-herding job in Baggs, Wyo., to work in a mine in Moffat County.

But his flare for the sport died after his children grew up and left the household.

“The kids grew up, and I didn’t have to feed them anymore,” Mascarenas said.

From the look of front porch lined with antlers, those old days must have been glorious, even more so as Mascarenas said he kept few racks.

His grandson, a former hunting guide, drew him back into the thrill. Now, Mascarenas takes to the hills with Grajeda.

“I take him just to help him, to help him continue and to feel young,” Grajeda said. “I go just to be there.”

With cameras in tow, Grajeda takes his grandfather out in a pickup these days, a comfortable change from the times Mascarenas would set out on horseback and camp for weeks at a time in the snow.

Mascarenas remembered those hunts fondly.

“Years ago, it was fun,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work now. I don’t get around anymore.”

That’s when his grandson chimes in and lends a hand.

“Now that hunting is here, he’s got the fever again, so were going again,” Grajeda said.

And when Mascarenas isn’t out hunting, his children and grandchildren are out making him proud.

“It’s a family thing,” Grajeda said.

Grajeda will bring his kills by so his grandfather, or “the inspector,” as he is aptly called, can take a look.

“We gotta show Grandpa,” Grajeda said.