Blog Entries from the WeHuntSC.com blogging crew
Hey folks, my name is Sean Jeffries, and I'm glad to be a part of WeHuntSC.com! I want to thank Clint for giving me a chance to write for the site, and I'm looking forward to sharing my outdoor experiences with you. In this first entry I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself and what you can expect in my writings.
I'm 44 years old and live in Clover,SC. My wife and I have been married since 1998, and last year we had our first child on the day after Thanksgiving. We named our son Paul after the Apostle, whose writings I have always loved. I'm a computer programmer for a living, and have been with the same company since 1992, although our company name has changed a couple of times over the years due to various mergers and acquisitions.
I've been hunting deer since 1985, but got my start with birds and small game a few years before that first deer hunt. I grew up in a small neighborhood outside of Charlotte in what was then pretty far out in the country. My street bordered the Rea farm, and a few of us neighborhood boys used to sneak out into their fields and woods to shoot at birds with our BB guns. It was obvious from an early age that I was into guns and hunting, so my dad gave me a little H&R 20 gauge shotgun for my 13th birthday.
That gun sat in the closet for close to a year. It was mine, but we only went out and shot it a handful of times. Then, one September afternoon, the phone rang. On the other end was a friend whose back yard sat perpendicular to my own. He was my age, and of all of the kids in the neighborhood, the two of us were the ones that liked hunting more than just about anything else, and we had previously spent a lot of time together in the woods with our BB guns. This young fellow shared a name with a famed Scottish poet: Robert Burns.
When I answered the phone that day, Robert asked me if I wanted to go hunting. "Sure," I answered, "but I don't have any BBs." "No," said Robert. "With shotguns." I paused for a second, excited. "Let me ask my mom," I said.
Mom and I had a conversation which ended with her calling my dad to get his permission for me to go hunting with Robert. Dad gave it, and thus started my first real hunt. Robert and I hunted squirrles that day on a little seven acre tract of land that his father owned. I don't remember whether or not we got anything, but man, I was hooked.
My first deer hunt took place during my Christmas break from college in 1985. Robert and I went to a tract of land in Weddington, NC that he had permission to hunt on. We didn't see any deer that day, but I saw plenty of tracks, and I knew that this was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went back to college when the break ended, and Robert went on to start his own business selling tree stands. He's still in that business today, and in addition to my day job as a computer programmer, my passion is writing books about hunting.
In the mid-90s, I started a website called "Sean's Outdoor Almanac". There weren't many websites around in those days, and mine was one of the first personal hunting sites on the net. Over the years it morphed into a site called "Wingshooters.net", and on that site I have documented every one of my hunts going back to the year 2000.
I'm also a Christian, and you'll be hearing a lot about that in this blog. For many years now I've felt like my calling has been to minister to Sportsmen in one way or another. That calling has led me to begin writing a series of books that fall under the title of "Hunting for the Heart of God". The first book, Deer Hunter's Devotional, was published late last year just before my son was born. My two other books are secular in nature, but both deal with hunting.
In 2007, I went on my first safari to Africa. That safari was documented from start to finish in a book called Eight Days in Africa. My other book is a collection of stoies and essays on hunting, and is called Always Take Your Rifle. All three of my books are available in print and on all major eBook platforms. You can also order signed copies directly from my website at the Wingshooters Store.
In addition to the three books that I've already published, I'm currently working on the next two entries in the "Hunting for the Heart of God" series. The first is a novel called The Cabin, which is set in the world of the outdoors and deals with spiritual warfare. The second is another devotional entitled Daily Bread for Deer Hunters. From time to time I'll be posting excerpts from my books here in this blog.