Sixteen-year-old Nathan Raser knew he had a big turkey on his hands while hunting with dad Paul Raser last month.

What he didn’t know – at least not right away – was that his turkey could be among the largest ever registered in the state of Minnesota.

The Chanhassen High School tenth-grader and his dad were hunting wild turkey in the woods behind their home off of County Road 140 when they first spotted the bird after school on April 26.

“It was the third spot we tried,” Nathan recalled.

They had just moved from the crick to the north side of the woods when they heard it gobble from “a ways away” Nathan said. They set up their turkey decoys and found a tree to act as a blind while they waited for it to get closer.

“You have to have patience and you have to know where they roost,” he explained, adding that the oak trees near their home are a turkey haven.

“We didn’t know if it would come,” Nathan continued. “We were just about to move.”

Father and son had just started to argue about where to go to next when the turkey made its presence known again.

“We sat for about a half hour,” said Nathan. “It kept getting closer and closer.”

With his shotgun perched on his shoulder at the ready, Nathan waited patiently for his shot. Finally, he got his opportunity as the turkey moved into his line of sight. Relying on his hunter’s safety training, Nathan took a split second to glance over the bird to make sure it was a tom (male) and not a hen (female). Then he took aim and delivered a fatal shot to the bird’s head.

Nathan and his father came out of hiding to survey the kill. For the first shot Nathan had ever taken while turkey hunting, he had bagged one big bird.

“I was hoping it was 23 to 24 pounds,” he said. Turns out, it was considerably bigger than Nathan had hoped.

They took a few photos before bringing it to a neighbor down the road with the National Wild Turkey Federation. There, the bird, estimated to be 4 to 5 years old, weighed in at a whopping 27 pounds. It was then that speculation began about the turkey being one for the record books.

Speculation continued at Cabin Fever in Victoria where Nathan had the bird registered.

The Rasers are waiting to hear back where exactly the bird will fall among state records. Turkeys are ranked based on weight, as well as length of beard and spurs.

Nathan said his bird should rank high on weight, although the beard and spurs are not as large as some other record-breaking birds. The heaviest wild turkey shot in Minnesota weighed in just under 30 pounds.

Nathan is looking ahead to next year’s turkey hunt and he’s keeping his eyes open for a local turkey rumored to be even bigger than the one he got this year.

And what will the family do with all that turkey meat? Debra is still trying to figure that out. “I might have to make some cheesy potatoes and have a bunch of kids over,” she said.

-Mollee Francisco, staff writer