Bow hunting made easy - courtesy of Chris Cooper.

The 32-year-old Cabot man begins preparation for bow season weeks before most people and his family reaps the benefits.

"He makes it easy for us," said Howard Cooper, 54, his father. "Chris does all the leg-work."

Cooper begins going into the woods in late August. He takes video equipment and records the locations of deer. He also studies their tendencies and tracks their moves.

This isn't just a one-shot deal. Cooper repeats this practice six days a week, usually from 6:45 p.m. until dark, right up until the beginning of bow season.

That often makes his family's hunting expeditions one-shot deals.

"The last four years or so, I've had my deer by my second day out and Chris has them all on tape," said his brother, Jeff Cooper, 31. "That's a good thing because I don't have a lot of time to hunt."

Jeff Cooper is married, lives in Butler and is raising a family. Chris Cooper is single and living at home.The two brothers and their father all work in the tool and die business."I have more free time on my hands and this is how I spend it," Chris Cooper said. "I'm a dedicated hunter. I love it.""He spends all of his time and money on this," his father said. "Hunting and fishing are his life."All three got their bucks this year in Westmoreland County in October. Howard and Chris Cooper both bagged 8-points while Jeff got a 7-point."I've been hunting since I was 12, and this is the biggest one I've gotten," the father said. "I've probably gotten 15 to 18 deer with a bow in my lifetime."I've got a bad back and if it wasn't for my sons, I couldn't do it anymore. They build the tree stand and do all the work. I just show up and hunt," he added.Five days after his father bagged his deer, Jeff Cooper bagged his - from the same tree stand and the same spot."That's all Chris' work," Jeff Cooper said.Deer hunting has been in the Cooper family for generations. Howard Cooper began hunting 42 years ago with his father and grandfather. His sons began doing it with their father and grandfather as well."I went out in the woods with them when I was nine or 10," Chris Cooper said. "I was the hunting dog. I couldn't wait to turn 12 so I could join them."Leland Cooper, Howard's father, died three years ago at age 76. He was still a hunter at the time of his death.In fact, the family bought him a crossbow earlier that year and he bagged a deer with it."He couldn't take the cold weather of buck (gun) season, so we convinced him to try bow-hunting," Jeff Cooper said. "He wasn't about to give up hunting."

The next hunter in the family appears to be Rachel Cooper - Jeff's 6-year-old daughter."She's into it right now," her father said. "She enjoys coming into the woods and watching. She convinced my father-in-law to try it, so on the first day of gun season, the three of us will be out there."The Cooper trio have been successful for so long that Howard Cooper can't recall a season in which one of them didn't get a deer."We get the deer processed," he said. "We enjoy deer meat and we take orders from neighbors who want some. We've given to food banks, too."Hunting is our family time. We enjoy doing it together. I'm sure it will stay a part of our family for generations."