{"id":2089,"date":"2025-12-01T14:37:57","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T12:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/?p=2089"},"modified":"2025-12-01T16:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:31:10","slug":"tommy-and-melissa-copeland-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/01\/tommy-and-melissa-copeland-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy and Melissa Copeland."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My friends Tommy and Melissa Copeland from North Carolina hunted with Big Water Safaris for the second time in September. This would be the first time that Melissa harvested an African animal. The Copelands put in a lot of time at the shooting range in preparation of this hunt and this paid off in spades. The hunt was very successful and also a load of fun for everyone involved, with a lot of laughter and the occasional tear or two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professional Hunter: Thinus Steyn<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The early bird catches the worm. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Melissa Copeland with her first African animal, a young eland bull.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tommy and Melissa with Tommy’s kudu bull.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tommy and Melissa taking a break during the hunt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Melissa with her red hartebeest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tommy Copeland with his blue wildebeest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A contemplative moment. Melissa with her first African animal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Melissa testing the water at the rock pool, with Simon and Tommy looking on. The water was too cold for a swim. The cave is in the background.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tommy and Melissa with a blesbuck hunted to feed the endangered South China tigers at Laohu Valley Reserve.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Melissa and Tommy exploring the cave.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tommy and Melissa Copeland with Melissa’s impala ram.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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These boots were made for walking. And walk, they did.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friends Tommy and Melissa Copeland from North Carolina hunted with Big Water Safaris for the second time in September. This would be the first time that Melissa harvested an African animal. The Copelands put in a lot of time at the shooting range in preparation of this hunt and this paid off in spades….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2089"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2116,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2089\/revisions\/2116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigwatersafaris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}