Dad's Best Friend Brian Huffman and his son, Nicholas, watch as their dog, Gus, looks for a pheasant while hunting at The Pheasant Farm in Grand Rapids on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. "I’m more likely for success because he’s a better mentor," Nicholas said. "Instead of me learning how to do it by myself, I have somebody who's done it before and has made the same mistakes as me, so I don’t make those mistakes as often as he did." Brian hands Nicholas a dead pheasant as Gus looks up during their hunt. “The exciting moments are when the bird goes up, you get onto it, you squeeze the trigger and watch it drop you just get like ‘yes!’ Nicholas said. “It’s like that kind of a feeling like when you score a goal in a game or score a touchdown.” Nicholas laughs as he talks about cooking the pheasants he shot while his dad packs up their truck from their hunt at The Pheasant Farm. "My mom doesn’t cook the wild game, that’s all us," Nicholas said. Brian puts his arm around Nicholas' shoulder as they make their way home from pheasant hunting. "He’s kind of one of my best buddies that I like to hang around with," Brian said. "It’s great to see him start to take interest in the same things that I’ve been interested in." Nicholas cuts bread as Brian cuts up onions in preparation for their roasted pheasant dish at their home in Grand Rapids on Saturday, Nov. 11, 2017. "Nicholas has always, whether it be wild game, he’s always had an interest in cooking." Brian said. "A couple summers ago, he wanted to take some cooking classes so him and one of his sisters signed up." Brian puts slivers of butter on the bacon-wrapped wild game as they cook in the oven. "A few times a year, we usually try a new recipe out and get creative. Sometimes they turn out great and sometimes we make sure we don’t make it twice," Brian said, then chuckled. Abigail Huffman, 9, Brian and Nicholas eat roasted pheasant while at their home in Grand Rapids. "We’re going to shoot wild game, we’re going to cook wild game and we’re going to eat wild game in our family," Brian said.
