Meet Sharps Southern Safaris Services

Sharps Southern Safari Services, commonly known by its brand, 4S, is a family owned and operated outdoor guide service dedicated to giving every guest a memorable hunting experience second to none. The Sharp family has been hunting and organizing hunts for over thirty five years. We are headquartered about 80 miles southeast of Amarillo, Texas and about 175 miles northwest of the Dallas/Fort Worth area in Quail, Texas.

We have thousands of acres of prime hunting land located in Texas and South Africa. Texas trophy hunters will enjoy the diversity of Hall, Collingsworth and Childress counties, while South African safaris will be conducted in the pristine Limpopo Province. 

Rev. Kerry G. Sharp is the founder and assists in the operation of 4S. He has pastored the Temple Christian Center located in Temple, Texas since 1991. He is married to wife, Sheila, for over twenty five years and is the proud father of two sons, Chase and Taylor. Rev. Sharp’s (known as the “Preacher” to his hunting companions) passion for hunting and love for the outdoors comes second only to his commitment to Christ and family. Almost fifteen years ago, he founded a ministerial hunting fellowship call the “Band of Brethren.” They use the medium of hunting to encourage and restore clergymen to their full potential for Christ. He has also been blessed to observe and hunt game abroad, from harvesting the majestic Kudu in South Africa, to placing first in the Texas “Venado Grande” Deer Contest.

 




Chase Sharp is the oldest son of the “Preacher,” the principle guide and sole owner of 4S. Chase’s love for the outdoors and his desire to share it with others led to the founding of Sharps Southern Safari Services. In his first year of professional guiding, he opened the Texas outdoors to twenty two clients. All of his clients have reserved their opportunity to hunt with him, again, next season because of the possibility to harvest trophy game and their overall experience with 4S. Chase finished his sophomore year at Temple College in May of 2008, and has now traveled to South Africa where he has been invited by Professional Hunter Jan Kleynhans to attend the prestigious Professional Hunters Course and to intern with Tusker Safaris.

Taylor Sharp is the second son of Kerry and Sheila Sharp and the fourth Sharp in 4S. Taylor presently is a student at Temple College, but takes every opportunity to escape to the freedom of the outdoors. He is an avid golfer and an excellent hunter. Only recently was his older brother Chase able to top his trophy eleven point whitetail deer.  Taylor is an able guide and an integral part of the future of Sharps Southern Safari Services.

 Rev. Robert L. Sharp is the pastor of Calvary Christian Center located in Georgetown, Texas. He has been a pastor for more than forty years. During this time, Rev Sharp designed, built and founded many churches throughout the state of Texas, one of which is the Temple Christian Center pastored by his son Kerry for the last eighteen years. . Bob loves the thrill of the hunt and meeting people with like passions. He is a seasoned hunter and great asset in the field. It was his love for hunting that introduced Kerry to the outdoors at a very young age and the rest is history.

How it all got started:  To explain how Sharps Southern Safari Services began, we must go back to when Chase was ten years old and had just harvested his first deer with a bow.  He asked me this question “Daddy, can you make a living hunting?” My answer to him was, “It is like trying to play football in the NFL, a lot try and most don’t succeed.” That answer did not kill his desire for hunting, nor dampen his love for the outdoors. He watched, all of his life, as I arranged hunts and hunting leases for minister and he fell in love with the idea of getting people into the great outdoors. Chase knew he could never abandon his education for the woods because his mother is a school principal and would not allow that to happen. So, he had to choose a career in a field that pertained to the outdoors and wildlife. His first career choice was game biologist, but that required too much science. As he began college, Chase decided to become a game warden, but after his first year of college he realized that it was too competitive for him. It was the beginning of his sophomore year at Temple College that the answer came through two unlikely factors. The first was the exploding popularity of the twenty four hour a day Outdoor Channel. The second was even more unlikely than the first. It was Ebay. It seemed that people all over the USA were watching the Outdoor Channel. They would get excited about hunting, but had no place to go. That is where Ebay answered the call with it millions of members logging on daily. It connected people with no place to hunt with people who did. After much persuasion his mother allowed him to run a “few” hunts in the fall between his classes. The hunts grew from a “few” to twelve and from twelve to twenty-two. A lot of friends were made and some nice deer harvested during that first fall season. Chase shared the news of his new found success with his mom and she could not deny the fact that Chase was about to have a life change. With the help of his dad, grand-dad and little brother Sharps Southern Safari Services (or 4S, as Chase likes to call it) was born. It seems there is just something special about hunting with someone who loves to hunt.

How we got to historic north Texas: Hunting has changed in Texas as far as the North is from the South. It has gone from asking a farmer if you can hunt in his field to the farmer asking you to put another zero on the check. In the past if you were going to kill trophy whitetail deer you went south to the Rio Grande for the “muy grandes”. We, like most Texans, hunted in south Texas until we were priced out of the senderos of south. The migration of the average hunter began to move north to the central part of the state. The deer were plentiful in these areas but the “muy grandes” of the south were just a memory. We were continually on the lookout for a place to hunt trophy deer but the only place I was seeing them was in the taxidermist shop. I questioned where they came from; I expected Kansas, Montana, or Canada? Almost every time I ask the answer would be the same, “North Texas, it is the best kept secret in Texas hunting”. I realized, then, that if I was ever going to get back into trophy whitetail deer, I was going to have to go north. It took almost five years of research and hundreds of hours of studying topographical maps and satellite photos, but it finally paid off. We found a friendly rancher who gave us an opportunity to hunt in historic north Texas. He had never leased the hunting rights to his property, but after a trial period of one season, we agreed to a five year lease. It did not take five years to find the north Texas trophies. Two years after we started hunting in north Texas, a state record was taken just thirteen miles from our leases. In the fourth, year I was fortunate to harvest a P&Y trophy whitetail that won first place in the state wide “Venado Grande” deer contest. The search was over: north Texas was new south.