A neighbor's complaint has one lifelong hunter shaking his head after the police spoke with him about a deer hanging from a tree in his front lawn in Bow.

Every year since he was 13, Henry Ladd Sr. has hunted deer, moose, bear and whatever else the forest provides. And each year, like clockwork, Ladd has hung the catch in front of his home, where it was gutted and drained of blood before the meat was cut.

That was until last week, when a neighbor who spotted a hanging doe called the police to complain about Ladd, who is now 81.

For the police, the call was a minor animal complaint, just one of many on Oct. 31, according to Sgt. Margaret Lougee. An officer spoke to Ladd, but there was nothing illegal about using his own property to process venison.

However, the idea that a neighbor would not understand a hunting tradition the Ladds have passed on for 68 years left a foul taste in their mouths.

"We've lived on this hill forever," said his son, Henry Ladd Jr. "Always have, always will."

When an officer pulled up to his father's home about 5:45 p.m., Henry Ladd Jr. was in the process of gutting the deer, a 110-pound doe his father described as "just right for eating."

"Did you tell them to go back to Massachusetts? That's what we do up here," Henry Ladd Jr., 43, recalled saying to the officer.

The Bow police had few details about the anonymous complaint, other than that it came in about the same time trick-or-treaters were knocking on doors for candy.

"It was just really odd having them come up and question us like that," said Henry Ladd Jr.

"If the Pilgrims didn't kill deer, we wouldn't be here," he said. "And I love the meat. We don't waste an ounce."

The father-son duo, who live two doors away from each other on

White Rock Hill Road, have been hunting together for decades. In the father's living room is the head of a 1,200-pound moose. From tip to tip, the Ladds said, its antlers are 6 feet apart, longer than the height of an average human.

The fur of a 250-pound bear taken in the North Country hangs on a wall at his son's home.

A saw two people can use to fell trees rests atop a flat-screen television in an otherwise rustic living room dedicated to the outdoors.

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