PERU — Sam Cote, 19, of Peru has wandered the Maine woods over the last nine years, learning the tips and tricks to hunting.

She’s learned her lessons well. This fall, she accomplished what many hunters strive for — a grand slam. Since early September, she bagged a 128-pounds bear, a 736-pound moose with a 40-inch rack spread, an adult male turkey and a 10-point, 170-pound buck.

“It’s like the Super Bowl for football,” Cote said. “It’s a big deal. Definitely a big deal.”

In early September, she said, “I went with out with my dad (Chris Cote) and my boyfriend (Craig Wade) for my bear.” At the end of the month, “I got like six text messages that I got my moose permit.”

With her father, her boyfriend, her uncle Mark Cote and Dean McLaughlin they went to Ashland and bagged the moose. That’s when she began thinking about a grand slam.

“Once we got the moose, I pretty much had my heart set on it,” she said. “Well, I got my moose, that’s the hardest one. So I figured I’d get my turkey.”

She said she had never been turkey hunting before.

“They are the stupidest bird, but they can hear you from like a mile away. It was like impossible. It was frustrating, but I wasn’t about to give up,” Cote said.

“I had gone out for like a week straight, and I had seen plenty, but they heard me and they took off the second saw them,” she said.

She decided to take a break from hunting for a while and one morning her dog, Ziva, woke her up.

“All of a sudden, around 9 a.m., she looks out the window and starts growling. I asked, ‘what are you growling at?’ I roll over and there (the turkey) was! And I ended up shooting it out of my bedroom window. That was definitely a first!”

Sam said she’s going to start training the 1-year-old lab so she can go partridge hunting with her.

“I got my deer the fourth day I had been out,” she said. ” I’d been hunting with my dad. We ended up calling it in. It was like 30 yards from us. Neither of us heard it. We were just kind of watching around and all of a sudden, I stopped and looked over at my dad, he like leaned up against a tree.

“I said, dad. He said ‘what?’ There’s a deer. He said, ‘Shoot it!’ It was like, all of a sudden, one shot. It dropped,” she said.

Cote plans to attend an upcoming banquet by the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife in Augusta.

“You put in your seal numbers for the tags you put on your animals, and you give them those, and you get a badge (for a grand slam),” she said.

Cote has been hunting since she was 10.

“I grew up around it. I like being outside in the woods. I didn’t grow up with a TV much. I went out with my dad when I was young, got hooked to it and kept going out. My favorite is probably bear trapping, which will probably go away soon. So I’ll enjoy it while I can.”

Cote has bagged three deer, seven bears, one moose and a turkey.

So what’s next after the grand slam?

“I actually picked up archery this year, she said. “I didn’t go out with my bow but I’ve definitely been practicing down in the basement whenever I get a chance; during the summer, outside.”

“That’s my goal for next year,” Cote said. “Get out and get my deer with archery.”

[email protected]