After traveling to Florida for two non-productive hunts for an Osceola turkey, Mike Cole had written off his World Slam. But his son Simon had other ideas.
On the first attempt 20-some years ago, Mike hunted with a friend and landowner. They located turkeys and everything looked good until an outfitter who leased the hunting unexpectedly showed up with clients who needed to tag out quickly. So Mike stepped aside and his tag went unfilled.
Years passed. Then in 2021 both Mike and Simon got Gould’s and Ocellated turkeys in Mexico. Mike only needed an Osceola turkey to complete his World Slam. Simon needed an Osceola and a Rio. After that, with the World Slam within reach they decided that they needed to make it happen. Last year they traveled to Florida for what Mike said would be his last try for an Osceola. They were set up to hunt with a “recommended” outfitter. “Let’s just say it was less than a really good hunt,” Simon said. “I’ve got pictures of the outfitter asleep. He was supposed to be setting up to call behind us but I have pictures of him passed out asleep, so I’d say it wasn’t a Grade A effort.”
That was it as far as Mike was concerned. But Simon didn’t want it to end that way, so he called Nick Filler at Worldwide Trophy Adventures. Simon had guided Nick on a Wyoming antelope hunt and he knew any additional attempt for an Osceola would have to be reliable. He thought of WTA. (Simon grew up with dreams of becoming a hunting guide, watching Mike guide in the Little Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. Now Simon is a guide for antelope, deer, and elk hunters.)
“Dad will be 73 in December and this was his, and I quote, ‘Last Osceola trip,’” said Simon, who is 43. “He didn’t even want to do it but I talked to Nick. I was like, ‘Look, if I buy the hunt, Dad will go, right? He’s not going to tell me no if I already paid for it so let’s figure out who you’d recommend because this is honest-to-God, his last shot for this bird.’”
Nick said he’d check with WTA’s consultants. About 15 minutes later, Simon was talking to WTA Senior Consultant Travis Baker, and within an hour he had a hunt booked.
Simon contacted the outfitter, who sent trail-camera photos and told them what to expect. “They set us up for success. They said if you go here and do this, you’ll see birds and you’ll be successful. If you try to do stuff on your own, we can’t guarantee success. That’s the way it’s supposed to work, right? Trust your guide.”
So the first morning of the hunt, they slipped into the blind and as usual Mike wanted Simon to take the first shot. “Look,” Simon told him, “you said this is your last try, so you’re shooting first.” Mike said he wouldn’t argue this time.
Simon was watching down the road to the south, Mike to the front and north. They had been told not to call, that no one had hunted before them so the birds hadn’t been pressured. Just let them do their thing, they said.
“So I’m watching the clock and it’s a few minutes until 8:00 and I’m thinking we ought to be getting close,” Simon said. Sure enough, a gobbler came up the road on schedule. Mike got ready and when the bird walked by at about 35 yards, he lowered the boom. “He hammered him,” Simon said. “I mean he dropped him where he stood, so we’re sitting there and quietly congratulating each other and high fiving.”
Simon wanted to pick up the bird, but Mike said to leave him there so as not to mess anything up. About an hour later, six jakes came down the road and saw the downed tom. “They walked up to that gobbler putting and cackling and talking back and forth, getting pretty excited, and one of them jumped up and tried to kick the shit out of that old gobbler. We just laughed and eventually they wandered off right by the blind.”
They waited until about 11:00 and decided to retrieve Mike’s bird, take photos and get him breasted out and in the freezer, then go get lunch at the house and be back in the blind by 2:30, as they’d been directed.
They were a few minutes late getting back and they saw birds on the trail in front of them so they had to wait for them to walk out of sight. Then they slipped in the blind “and even though they had told us not to call, Dad was like, I can’t help it, so he lets out a couple yelps to let them know there are turkeys still back here and they shouldn’t be worried,” Simon said. “It wasn’t two minutes and those birds all came running back and one of them was pretty good, a longbeard, so I shot him and down he went.”
They left the blind to retrieve Simon’s bird, laughing and talking as Mike put his call in his mouth and let out a cackle. Off in the distance a bird gobbled. “We’re like, son of a gun, that’s the first bird we’ve heard gobble.” Mike wondered if the outfitter would let them shoot another bird. “So we’re standing there with my bird and another bird is gobbling, so I call the outfitter and we talk. ‘Yeah, we have my bird down, it’s all good, thanks a bunch. Hey, do you think we could keep hunting and try for another bird?’ They said, ‘Sure, no problem. Just keep hunting.’”
“I hung up and said, get in the blind,” Simon laughed. Mike called a few more times and the tom came in gobbling and strutting, leading a group of other toms. “At one point there were four longbeards in a row coming straight toward the blind,” Simon said. “The one that came in gobbling really got your blood pumping,” he said. Simon went into son-guide mode, whispering yardage and which was the boss bird of the four longbeards running toward the blind. “Last bird, second to last, 35 yards, don’t shoot they are all lined up, 30 yards, next to last bird, he’s half strut, he’s clear, kill him!,” Simon said, reliving the hunt.
Simon called the outfitter and said, “OK, we’re tagged out.” “That didn’t take long!” and Simon told him, “Well, we had him gobbling when I had you on the phone.” They both laughed.
Mike completed his World Slam. His reaction? “In classic Dad fashion, he was quietly excited, but immediately became more focused on making sure I filled my tag. Right back to the Dad-guide I have known all my life,” Simon said. “The real excitement came when we both had tags filled.”
“I was happy I got my bird but it really meant more to me that we were able to ‘double’ in one afternoon,” he said. “That shared success and those pics of both of us with birds will live rent-free in my mind for the rest of my days. I say double in quotes because it wasn’t a true double, but close enough for me.”
Being guides themselves, Mike and Simon appreciate a well-run hunting operation. “They delivered,” Simon said. “They had birds on camera, they knew where they were and what they were doing. Like I said, trust your guide. If they say go here and do this, don’t come up with an alternative plan because you think you know better.”
That’s why guides do what they do. “We spend a lot of time to find animals and figure out what they are doing, where they’re going to be. We know that part, that way when the client shows up we can take them out to do it. Nothing is guaranteed, but we put a lot of hours to try to make sure we have success. When a guy tells me, ‘I’ve put in 15 years for this tag’ that gets my blood pumping because you can’t get back those years you’ve invested in this hunt,” he said.
“We had a great hunt, then they put our birds in a freezer and let us do our running around and goofing off for a couple days,” Simon said. “They took really good care of us.”
“Getting Dad, at nearly 73, to complete his turkey World Slam was a huge deal for me. Years ago, we agreed that instead of Christmas and birthday presents, we’d go on hunting trips, at least two or three a year, for turkey, deer, squirrel. It really doesn’t matter what, just that we are hunting together.”
