Being in the outdoors and hunting is certainly an enjoyable time for every hunter, more so when you’re with family. In this episode, Chris Enyeart shares how he and his children started Extreme Element Outdoors. Chris is a father to three children, two boys and a girl, who are hunters themselves. Chris says being there when his kids take down their first animal is as memorable as his wedding day. He also emphasizes the importance of safety for everyone whenever you’re on a hunt.
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LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Passing on Extreme Element Outdoors Chris Enyeart
Chris Enyeart and his sons and daughters love hunting in Iowa. Chris has done a lot of things in the chemical engineering safety realm. He’s taken into various states. He’s home in Iowa now and couldn’t be happier. They own 120 acres, which he’s going to talk about on how they’re developing it, how they’re helping deer grow and trying to establish a balanced herd. Having said all that, Extreme Element Outdoors was Emmitt’s brainchild. The whole family is part of this program. You can see them on YouTube or check them out on Facebook. All in all, it’s one hunting family. You’re going to enjoy Chris’ stories.
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We’re heading out to Iowa, the land of the giants from social media stuff. Some big bucks are falling down all over the Midwest. They’ve got a corner in the market. We’re meeting with Chris Enyeart. Chris is the father of a bunch of kids that started Extreme Element Outdoors. Chris, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Bruce. I’m glad to be here.
I’m happy to have the dad here. Emmitt was on the show and he said, “You’ve got to get my dad on the show. He’s the guy that got us all started.” Let’s start with showing off with some of your hunting traditions, where you came from, and why you’re still hunting?
I’m flattered that Emmitt made those comments. What I’ve always tried to do is expose my kids to the outdoors. I was certainly fortunate to grow up in a family with the traditions of hunting. I grew up in the state of Pennsylvania. There are a lot of hunters in the woods on the first day of Pennsylvania rifle season. There’s a great tradition. I grew up in that hunting camp environment and that’s where it all got started. I took an interest in bowhunting and develop a passion for whitetail deer and elk hunting. When I graduated from college, I had the opportunity to work in the state. I continued to work in the state for several years, then I moved to Texas for employment opportunities. I had an opportunity to be exposed to the type of hunting they do in Texas with the theatres and a different type of hunting environment that I was accustomed to for whitetail. I had some success there and I enjoyed it. It’s a great deal but my heart and my passion were eventually to get back to the Northeast or potentially the Midwest.
That opportunity came when I had the opportunity to go to Ohio. We made the move. We were challenged to live in a relatively urban area. Being from that area, it was difficult to obtain access to property, quality and population density, but still managed to continue hunting. We had success there as well. Emmitt shot his first deer in the state of Ohio and then had the opportunity to go to Iowa. We’ve been here ever since. Many of your readers are probably aware that the state of Iowa and the quality of the whitetail deer here, but there are still some great opportunities in Iowa for access to public hunting. I don’t know if it’s one of the best-kept secrets but some may not want that to get out. It’s firsthand knowledge that there’s some great public hunting in Iowa. There are still pockets of building relationships and being able to access some private property for hunting as well.
Emmitt shared a couple of those places on his show. It was interesting if you spend the time, invest some time and try to be a good hand with the landowner, you’d be surprised with what happens.
It’s come a long way. I can remember when I was a young kid, you could gain access to the property through a handshake offering to bail some hay or help out around the farm, and maybe offering up some of your harvests. Through persistence and developing those relationships and the highest level of respect, those opportunities still exist.
Why did you start Extreme Element Outdoors? What was the kicker on that?
Emmitt had an interest in hunting since he was young. In his high school years when he was older later in his teens, he started with wanting to self-video his hunts and it all started with that. He would say, “Dad, why don’t we look for opportunities to share this with others?” Your hunt takes it to a whole new level. He developed an interest in that and wanted to look for opportunities to be able to share that with others. It’s not quality but nonetheless, they’re interesting. You’ll see it if you look at those videos that our focus is continuous improvement, enjoy what we’re doing and share that with others.
I know you picked up 120 acres in Iowa. Why did you buy that land?
It’s always been a dream to have a piece of my own property for hunting and for managing the habitat. We’re fortunate. We’ve only had it about a year and a half. It goes into the land preparation. We were fortunate to pro some equipment. We’ve got some food plots in the hunting season. We’re developing a long-term plan for what the habitat should be. That’s the enjoyment out of it. That’s why we did it. I’m finding that I’m enjoying that as much as the hunting itself.
What type of terrain is it?
It was youth season. We took my youngest son’s first deer off one of the food plots we planted. We got footage of that as well. It’s overall exciting.
What type of terrain is it? Is it all ag land or creek bottom? What is the land consisted of? What type of topography?
We’ve got rolling terrain. It’s 120 acres. It’s 90 timber and we’ve got 30 acres of field. We’ve got about 15 acres in food plot. It’s rolling terrain with some deep ravines that break up the property. For a 120-acre parcel, in my opinion, it hunts big.
If you grew up in a family with the tradition for hunting, try to expose your kids to the outdoors too. Share on XWhat does “hunts big” mean?
We can have multiple treestands and a couple of two to three hunters there. One time we’re there. Perhaps, the wind is not affecting each other. It’s not a flat parcel, with the visibility you can see from one side to the other. The contour breaks things up. You can hunt a section without potentially negatively impacting another hunter.
Is that why you bought it, because of the versatility of the terrain?
Yeah, that was a piece of it. The region is going to have a relatively high deer density. That region of the state has a good reputation. It just so happened that it had everything we need. I wanted some fields and some areas for food plots. The majority of it with timber or where we would create cover. It has all that to offer with potential too. With some hard work, we can make it better.
Do you have water on it?
We do. The ravines in some places will hold water. We also have a small frog pond on it.
FYI, it depends how steep your ravines are. I know a lot of guys that put small dams to fill it up to the top dams. They’ll put dams on a number of them. It holds water longer and sometimes through the summer. That will certainly dry up after a while, but with runoff and everything, it creates a lot of little pools that deer don’t have to leave the security cover and they can go get a drink.
The other opportunity that we were looking for was a place of our own that we could create a sanctuary, manage, pass on lower-age class deer. See if we could potentially benefit from and that translates a dam for size. That was something else we were looking forward to as well. Our trail cameras indicate we’ve got a good inventory of deer. A lot of them were young deer. Nothing that’s massive and stands out that I certainly want to hunt that deer. We’re looking forward to the years to come and see what’s bypassing. We’re starting to identify names. We name some of the deer to see if they return the following year and if we can hold any of them. Being it’s 120 acres, it’s not always easy to hold them there but we may have the opportunity to benefit. Some of our neighbors manage as well but we’ll see.
That was my next question, one about your neighbors and two, what are their hunting focus goals. Have you discussed, “If we manage this correctly, we can grow some nice deer here?” Have you had those conversations?
I have had the opportunity to meet some of the neighbors. They’re great people. Any time you get to the rural Midwest, there are good people everywhere. We have great neighbors. Some of the property are outfitted. One of my neighbors is an outfitter. They’ve already recognized the benefit of managing the herd and trying to let deer get to a mature age. Some of that is already in place and recognized the need that we need to harvest does to make sure we keep the right balance.
Have you done anything with QDMA yet or talked to those guys?
I haven’t, Bruce. That is something we’re going to definitely do like a whirlwind. We’ve just got the ground. We put a structure on it so there was a little bit of construction activity and then trying to acquire some of the equipment. We’ve had many things going on but that is something we’re going to do. I’m going to seek out some third-party advice on what are some of that. I have some ideas that I’d like to bounce off to some people to see what they think as well.
My recommendation is to go to the QDMA website and look up for the regional person and say, “Next time you’re in the area, can I buy you a cup of coffee? Can we have lunch?” In my opinion, they do as well as anybody in the industry of helping people do a couple of things. One, grow a balanced deer herd and two, build relationships with your neighbors. They call them co-ops and they do that well. It’s an impressive group. The other thing is Land & Legacy. Here’s a shout-out for Matt Dye and Adam Keith. Land & Legacy can be found on the web. I have no idea what they charge. They’ve been on my show a number of times and they are great young men. If I can help them at any time, I always throw their names out because they get it. Even though their young, they’ve got some great success stories of what they’ve done. They’ve taken habitat 40 acres of thousands of acres. That’s what they call their company, Land & Legacy, because the legacy of hunting is what they want to help everybody and all their clients get through. When you talk about your hunting tradition, you talk about Easton and Emmitt. What does it feel like when Easton shot his first buck? What does it feel like for a dad? Can you explain that?
You rank those as the most important days in your life that you’ll remember forever. The top of everyone’s list is when they got married and when their children are born. I’m not going to say that it’s there. The passion for hunting and getting your kids out there and getting them involved, it’s there. I can remember when Emmitt harvested his first deer, I was there with him and Easton. It’s one of those days you’ll never forget. It’s etched in stone. You can still recall the little details of the entire experience. I don’t know that there’s a better feeling. I’ve had an opportunity to shoot some respectable deer, but nothing has ever been as exciting as being with the children when they shoot theirs.
It’s a special time. You’re doing such a great job of passing it on. Why don’t you give some advice or tips to some of the readers out there, single mom, dads or whomever, about helping to pass on the hunting tradition?
Nothing is as exciting as being with your children when they shoot their deer. Share on XSome of this may be from learning the hard way. What we try to do is make it fun, get them involved in the preparation and make it enjoyable for them. For some people, it may be more difficult being able to access the property but you want to set them up for success. I personally don’t think it should come too easy. I like to see them have to work for it whether it be in the preparation, time in the stand or in the blind. I’ve got my daughter who is sixteen and she harvested her first deer several years ago. With all three kids, I’ve got them involved in preparation whether it be brushing in the blind, hanging the stand or with food plot preparation. I made sure that to some degree, they were involved with that. I didn’t overwork them but certainly involved. At least in their case, all three had to put in some stand time or blind time.
Easton, for example, hunted probably a dozen times and didn’t have an opportunity. That’s quite a bit for an eight-year-old, but the number one thing is setting them up for success. You don’t want them to not succeed. Sometimes, that can be a challenge. You don’t want them to get bored with it. The other thing too is making the time quality. One of the things I like to do is hunt with them in a blind. I don’t like to do a lot of treestand hunting because we can still have conversations in the blind without disrupting. We can still talk and we can whisper. That is a high-quality time. I was with my fourteen-year-old daughter when she harvested her first deer. I spent a couple of sits with her in the blind. I’ve got more information in those sits than I’ve got hours outside of the woods.
I like the last part where you had some real conversations with your daughter without distraction. You talked some stuff that maybe you hadn’t talked about in a while or never. They are sitting out and all of a sudden, there goes the conversation. That’s priceless.
Most parents are aware of this, I also take advantage of the technology. The iPads and the cell phones, I keep them on silent. That helps quite a bit as well. It’s a lot different than when I was introduced where we went out and nearly froze. All you look forward to is getting back to the camp to warm up because of the time of the year. I don’t know if that’s useful.
Since we’re talking about the kids and I know your background is in safety in the chemical business. Let’s talk about safety first and how you train your kids to be safe in the woods.
Safety is the number one priority, whether it be handling a firearm or particularly with the bowhunting, the treestand safety. They know it’s important to me. Sometimes at an early age, they don’t understand because they haven’t experienced consequences or know anything that’s happened to anyone they personally know. I try to give them examples of incidents that have occurred that I’m aware of and the impacts it has on those people’s lives, whether it be a loss of a loved one or perhaps it’s a disabling injury. The other thing is setting the example when you’re out there. Making sure that it’s 100% tie off in the treestand. The firearm is always pointed in a safe direction, unload it and all of those things. It’s setting the example, trying to get them, making sure they understand the consequences and emphasizing how it affects people’s lives. Those are the things that I try to go by because I certainly don’t want them to learn it the hard way.
Nobody wants that. It’s up to all of us whether you’ve been in a treestand for decades or this is your first or you’re taking somebody out the first time. More so than ever, I shudder when I think of the wooden stands that we used to put up. You get in there and it’s dark. Your hands are gripping and it’s slipping because all the rungs are ice covered. Forget safety straps and these safety harnesses straps because there wasn’t.
When I first started bowhunting, I don’t know that anyone used a harness. I was late in my teens, but it wasn’t far into my early twenties that I started using a harness. It may have been ahead of the curve a little bit, but the first one I used I got from a place I worked. It wasn’t produced by one of the companies that are manufacturing specifically for hunters.
I know everybody knows this but in the ground blind, you don’t need to take your harness unless you’re like me, you fall asleep and you don’t want to fall out of your chair. That’s a joke. If you’re going in hang on and especially double sets with everybody who’s doing much filming, it might be a ladder stand and then you’re going to hang on above it for your camera set. Please think of your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mom and dad. If you forget your harness, you might as well have left your bow or your gun at home. That’s my thinking. Your thoughts, Chris?
I agree with you. This is what I do for a living. As far as putting in place programs to try to help protect people but it’s inherent in all of us. It’s easy to get complacent or look at a situation. It happened to me. I would be willing to bet about anyone that survived an incident. If you ask them, they would say, “I didn’t think it was going to happen to me.” It’s one of those things where you can’t just take the risk. You may perceive it as a little probability but it can and it will happen to you.
It does every year. Be safe, that’s our statement on that. What’s your one big thing when you’re hunting? If you do one thing every single time you go to the field, what is it?
We talked enough about safety. That’s certainly at the forefront. It’s the preparation, thought or strategy into where my stand location is, where I’m going to hunt or which stand I’m going to hunt. In Extreme Element Outdoors, we talk about being average hunters. We all work for a living. We have jobs and like others, I have limited vacation or time that I can commit in the woods. I want to make sure that every second that I get out there, I’m taking the time to analyze whether it be weather conditions and trail camp pics. I don’t know if this is too general, but I’m analyzing every second I have out there as far as where I’m going to hunt because of the limited time.
Thank you for that. Why don’t you give some shout-outs for Extreme Element Outdoors? How people can do that or check it out on YouTube or Facebook? Is there anything else you want to do?
Check out Extreme Element Outdoors at ExtremeElementOutdoors.com. You’ll find it interesting. We’ve got some blogs and videos there. I want to thank you, Bruce, for the great opportunity. I love the show. I can’t thank you enough.
I appreciate that. Sometimes if I ever draw another Iowa attack, I shouldn’t last. It gets frustrating for us out-of-staters but it does because there’s wonderful deer there, even more important. The hospitality of the people in rural Iowa is off the charts. Thank you for spending your time. Say hello to Emmitt for me. I look forward to catching up on the road.
Thank you, Bruce.
Important Links:
- ExtremeElementOutdoors.com
- Chris Enyeart
- Extreme Element Outdoors
- QDMA
- Land and Legacy
- YouTube – Extreme Element Outdoors
- Facebook – Extreme Element Outdoors