Sean's Trophy Room

Whitetail Deer: October 2006

By the beginning of October 2006, I was having a fantastic deer season. I already had two does in the freezer by the morning of October 5th, and on that day I was hoping more than anything else that my buddy Ted would get his first deer of the season.

As I sat in my blind and watched the sun rise, I saw a doe feeding out in the corn about 80 yards beyond my stand. I watched her for quite awhile, and shortly after she finally left I saw another deer cross my shooting lane way out past where the first deer had been. Another doe, I remember thinking, but I checked her with my binoculars anyway. I was shocked to see a mass of antlers where I was expecting nothing but a bald head, so I grabbed my rifle and fired.

I was sure the deer had stumbled after my shot, so I called Ted on the radio and told him I was going to go track a deer. I soon found blood, and after a somewhat long tracking job I found my buck laying on top of a hill in the woods about 150 yards from where I had shot him.

The mount was done by: Jordan Taxidermy in Fort Lawn, South Carolina.

Whitetail Deer: October 1996

I was high in a pine tree on a late October afternoon in 1996, watching over the same wheat field where I had shot my turkey back in April. Arnold was hunting just over the ridge at the power lines. It was getting colder as the day progressed, and while putting on my coat I noticed that a nice spike buck had wandered into the field.

I watched him for a half hour and had decided not to shoot since I already had a deer in the freezer that year. As he browsed, a large doe came in from the far side of the field. The doe kept glancing into the woods at the edge of the field, and I knew that something was in there.

I didn't have to wait long. I saw the head and antlers of a big buck as he started into the field. Two seconds later I had a clear view of him, and the first shot from my Remington 7mm mag took him in the heart. He kept walking, and I was afraid I had missed, so I pumped another round into him. He fell in his tracks, and a third shot guaranteed he would not rise from where he lay. The buck weighed in at 160 pounds.

This mount was done by: Artistic Wildlife, Fort Lawn, South Carolina.

Mule Deer: November 1996

1996 was the best hunting season of my life. My eight-point whitetail was in the freezer for only two weeks before I left North Carolina bound for Montana on a trophy mule deer hunt. On the drive from Gillette, Wyoming to the camp in Montana, a distance of about 90 miles, I saw more bucks than I had ever seen in my life, and I knew that I had chosen my hunting area well.

On the second day of my hunt, the guide and I spotted two female muleys on a ridge about two miles from our position. While the other two hunters remained with the truck, the guide and I made a long ascent of the mountain, sneaking high along the ridge to get into a better position to see the females. We figured that a buck had to be near. Our stalk lasted for over an hour before the guide, Floyd Mitchell, grabbed my arm and nodded toward the just-visible antlers of the alerted buck.

As Floyd confirmed that the deer was within my specifications, I raised my 7mm magnum and fired for the heart. The deer turned just as I fired and the shot went wide, slamming into a pine tree just behind where the deer had been standing. The buck headed over the top of the ridge, and, I thought, out of my life. Floyd shouted for me to run to the top of the mountain and watch for the deer to come up the next slope. I headed for the top of the snow covered mountain at full speed, dove to the ground at the peak, and braced my rifle against my shoulder for the moment that the deer would reappear. I saw him sprint across the valley and up the neighboring mountainside, centered the crosshair on his neck and fired a single shot. The deer dropped and never twitched, and the next thing I knew Floyd was shaking my hand yelling "Good shot, heck of a shot!"

The mount was done by the fellow I booked my hunt through, Tom Smith.

Wood Ducks: January 1999

Arnold Kirk and I had been duck hunting on Fishing Creek all morning with no luck. After arriving back at his land, we unhooked the boat from the truck and got ready to head in for lunch. We decided to sneak down to the small pond at the far end of his property just to see if any woodies were around. We crept slowly down the hill toward the dam, both of us carrying our shotguns at the ready.

Step by step we went until the pond was in full view. "Nothing," said Arnold, coming up out of his crouch. At that moment the far end of the pond erupted in a flurry of sound and motion as a dozen wood ducks flew up out of hiding. We watched, out of range, as they headed towards the woods, flying away from us.

I'll never know what changed their minds, but just as they were about the enter the woods, they all swung around onto a path that would carry them right back toward us. POW, POW, POW went Arnold's shotgun. The drake, nailed by Arnold, dropped into the center of the lake. I waited patiently until I knew that my duck's momentum would drop it onto the dry land of the dam, then I fired once, twice, three times for assurance, and watched my bird come falling out of the sky.

Shown above are those two ducks, mounted by: Artistic Wildlife, Fort Lawn, South Carolina.

Eastern Wild Turkey: April 1996

This turkey was shot during the April 1996 season in Lancaster, South Carolina. Arnold and I had hunted together that morning, with Arnold shooting a 19 pound gobbler at first light. That afternoon, I sat by myself in a blind beside a wheat field, waiting for my chance. After several hot hours in the blind, this turkey and two others came ghosting through the field. One shot from my Remington SP-10 ten gauge and he was mine.

I sat there for several minutes shaking, hardly able to believe that I had gotten my first turkey. Before long, Arnold came striding over the hill, and his grin was bigger than mine when he saw my bird. "Well," he said. "You've done something that not many people have done... killed a wild turkey."

While more and more hunters are taking turkeys these days, mine came at the beginning of the turkey hunting surge, and I'm as proud of that bird as I can be.

The mount was done by: Artistic Wildlife in Fort Lawn, South Carolina.

Pheasant: November 2002

I've wanted a pheasant mount for many years, and in November of 2002, I finally talked my buddy Ted into going on a paid bird hunt at one of the local South Carolina plantations. We chose one called Cedar Tree and we signed up for a 20 bird quail hunt, throwing in an extra four pheasants so that we could each get a mountable bird.

Ted shot the first male at the same time I picked up a hen. We had a moment of confusion where neither of us realized that the other had fired, and we went back and forth about who had shot the pheasant before realizing that we had each gotten one.

I told Ted to be careful on the next pheasant, since there was only one more male available for us to shoot. It worked out just fine, because a few minutes later that male exploded from under my feet, and I dropped him at a distance of no more than 5 yards with my Citori.

Mount by: Jordan Taxidermy, Fort Lawn, South Carolina

Wild Boar: January 2004

Ted and I took our first wild boar hunt together back in 1997 in Estill, SC. It was absolutely the worst experience that I have ever had on a guided hunt. We saw virtually no animals during the entire hunt, and we spent half a day on the side of the road when the guide's truck broke down.

We made up for it in 2004 when we decided to try for hogbeasts again in Taylorsville, NC. We choose actor Jerry Rushing's Chestnut Hunting Lodge, and we could not have made a better choice.

We were both given spots about 200 yards or so apart, then told to get ready for the hogs to come in. Within 30 minutes on the stand, I had already seen a dozen deer, including a big ten pointer. Shortly after that I heard Ted shoot, and I looked over in his direction to see what he had downed. I couldn't find him in my binoculars, so I returned my attention to my hunting area.

A large group of enormous hogs were coming my way. I picked out the biggest and fired. It was an obvious hit; I watched the dust fly from the hog's thick coat. It stared at me for a split second, charged, then reverse course and ran back into the woods. With a sound like a falling tree, I heard it slam to the ground and roll down the hill. Moments later, I was sitting on top of over 400 pounds of Russian Wild Boar.

Mount by: Jordan Taxidermy, Fort Lawn, South Carolina

Grey Fox: October 2005

I was deer hunting on my lease in Kershaw County, SC on a late October day. I had seen this particular fox several times before while hunting the same stand, but this time I decided to take the shot. She was walking across the field at a brisk trot. When she stopped, I slipped the safety off of my 7mm magnum and fired. She dropped in her tracks.

I was afraid that the big gun would tear her in half, but there was actually very little visible damage. I had always wanted a full body fox mount, and the fur on this one was just beautiful. I took her over to the taxidermist, and he assured me that it would make a good mount.

In the end, I was quite pleased with it. I added the antler myself; it's a shed that was found in North Carolina many years ago.

Mount by: Jordan Taxidermy, Fort Lawn, South Carolina

Wood Duck: December 2005

I had been duck hunting on my father in law's property a good bit in the 2005 season, and most mornings I didn't see anything except for deer and beaver. Ted and I had built a really nice blind in the upper end of the 12 acre lake, and one cold December morning it all came together.

I was sitting in the blind by myself early one morning, and just after legal shooting hours began I heard the squeal of a wood duck from across the pond. I responded with my own wood duck call, and within minutes two drakes swam up to my blind.

I stood, and as they flew I fired twice, getting one bird and missing the other.

Mount by: Jordan Taxidermy, Fort Lawn, South Carolina

Whitetail Deer: Various

In my early years of deer hunting, I managed to collect a few bucks from time to time. Most of these other than the two pictured earlier in the Trophy Room were not quite big enough to mount.

However, any time I've taken a deer with a rack that would look good on a plaque I've been sure to mount them that way, taking time to write the date and location of the hunt on the back of the plaque.

Pictured here are two small eight pointers and a scrappy little five pointer. They live as trophies in my memories, and the plaques look great on my office wall.

Mounts by: Sean Jeffries