The first time hunter to Africa will often have a great many questions to ask of those who have been before.  Unlike the relatively minimal amount of planning required for the average North American hunting trip, there are so many arrangements that must be made before hunting Africa. 

One of the biggest questions the hunter has is "how do I get my trophies back home?"  Fortunately, there are lots of people out there who will help you answer this question.  Late last year I put in a call to my taxidermist, Randy Jordan, who was quite willing to help me out.  I've been using Randy for several years now; he's done a deer, duck, fox, pheasant, and wild boar for me, and I'm extremely happy with his work.

I told Randy that I was planning a trip to Africa and that I would like for him to do the taxidermy work on my trophies.  Having visited his shop many times over the years, I had seen many African trophies on the walls and I knew he was familiar with the anatomy of the various antelopes.  Randy told me that he had been on safari three times himself, and he invited me down to his shop to talk about my plans.

We discussed the animals that I wanted to hunt with Randy giving me rough estimates on how much the mounts for each would cost.  He also gave me various pointers on getting through the Johannesburg airport and into the receiving area where my professional hunter would be waiting for me.  Finally, he talked about how I should go about getting my horns and hides back home.  He was also straightforward enough to tell me that I could get the taxidermy done in Africa and have the finished trophies shipped back home.  I had heard this, but I told him that I preferred to have someone I know and trust do the work.

After I shot each animal, he told me, the skinners would place the hides in salt to start drying and preserving them.  They would go from the skinning shack to a local African taxidermist for "dipping"; a process which kills any parasites that might be living in the hides.  I should be very careful to tag the hides and each of the horns with the American destination of the trophy, my name and number, as well as Randy's name and number.  The animals would then be crated up and shipped to America where they must clear customs and USDA inspections before being shipped on to a tannery in Raleigh, NC.

Once the hides had been properly tanned, the tannery would call Randy who would go pick them up and bring them back to South Carolina where he would proceed to do the taxidermy work.  I would, he told me, be welcome to come down to his shop once the animals arrived so that I could get another look at them. 

Randy then recommended that I use a company called Coppersmith to handle the importation of the trophies for me.  They would take care of everything from receiving the trophies in America and forwarding them on to the tannery in Raleigh.  This sounded like a good idea for me, so in early May I put in a call to Carol Rutkowski at Coppersmith.

Carol is the hunting specialist at Coppersmith and was, like everyone else I've talked with about my safari, quite helpful.  She told me the first thing I would need to do would be to fill out a power of attorney form to appoint Coppersmith as my legal representative for receiving shipments into America.  She faxed me the appropriate paperwork which I quickly filled out and faxed back to her.  I also sent a signed copy back to her in the mail along with copies of my drivers license and social security card.

When I asked her about what I needed to do to tell the African taxidermist where to ship my trophies, she asked me to contact her coworker Don Truly, who would send me out some custom made tags that I could place on each of my hides and horns that was preprinted with Coppersmith's receiving address.

Don was also quite helpful and quickly sent me out a couple of dozen of these tags.  The arrived within a couple of days, and I was impressed by the simple fact that Don had included a Sharpie pen in the packet for me to use to write my own information on the tags.  I locked the tags and pen up in my gun safe along with some of the other items I've acquired for my safari, then sent off a note to Don to confirm my receipt of the tags.

Carol confirmed for me that there was nothing else for me to do at this point.  The next step would be the actual tagging of the animals.  She did direct me to the extensive frequently-asked-questions section on Coppersmith's website which describes the entire process of importing trophies into America in great detail.  The website can be found at http://www.coppersmith.com.