MIDDLESEX TWP — Since age 4, Colleen Sippey has wanted to hunt buffalo.

She recently got her wish.

The Mars High senior accompanied her father, Mike Sippey, to Wyoming and shot a 900-pound buffalo on a ranch owner's property.

"It's something she's wanted to do for years," Mike Sippey said. "I've hunted bear in Maine and our entire family has hunted, but never out west.

"I went on the Internet to search for buffalo hunts and found this family in Wyoming that cultivated buffalo on their ... ranch property."

Colleen is one of Sippey's eight daughters. While each has hunted, none but Colleen has expressed interest in big-game hunting.

But when her father contacted the ranch owner, the latter was hesitant to grant them the hunt.

"He told us they usually allowed only really experienced shooters to come out because the buffalo is so strong. ... They don't go down easily," Sippey said.

Sippey took his daughter to a shooting range for two months to prepare for the hunt.

"She had hunted deer and other small animals locally — all of our kids have — but this hunt was going to require her shooting a larger rifle from a longer distance,"Sippey said. "I had to be sure she could handle it."

At the range, Colleen continually fired that rifle at a three-inch target from 100 yards away.

The practice came in handy.

The Wyoming ranch was located at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The guide drove the father-daughter duo out on to the prairie until a herd of buffalo was spotted. They were then dropped off for the hunt.

"When we first saw the herd, it was from a half-mile away,"Colleen Sippey said. "You couldn't just go right toward them because the land was so flat and they would take off once they saw you.

"We had to circle around the herd. We walked about two miles through brush to get on the other side (of the herd), staying downwind so we wouldn't be detected."

One shot was all Colleen needed.

She specifically had to shoot a young bull and did so, dropping the 900-pound animal from 120 yards away.

"The shot was perfect. The guide said he couldn't have made a better shot himself,"Mike Sippey said.

The Sippeys, who were on the 14,000-acre prairie for three hours before making the kill, are having the skull and horns bleached, getting a blanket made out of the hide and storing 300 pounds of meat in a basement freezer.

"We'll probably have a big party or something,"Mike Sippey said.

Now that she got her buffalo, Colleen says her big-game hunting days are not behind her.

"I'd love to go get a kangaroo in Australia or a grizzly bear in Canada," she said.

Her father laughed.

"I don't know about that, but I can see us hunting a black bear in Canada or going back to Wyoming to hunt antelope or mule deer."