Larry May is a school teacher and the host and curator of Full Range Outdoors, a family-owned and operated adventure into the outdoors. He and his family have always enjoyed hunting and fishing and the outdoors has always been part of their lives. Learn about why he decided to start their own outdoor company in hopes of spreading their love of the outdoor lifestyle. Full Range Outdoors is dedicated to promoting hunting, fishing, products, and services through video, pictures, and stories. Larry talks about incorporating kids into the outdoor and why is it important to let them experience the outdoors.
—
LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE:
Full Range Outdoors Family & Friends of Larry May
We’re heading out to Kentucky. Kentucky is cold. We’re joined by Larry May. Larry is a school teacher and he is the Host and Curator of Full Range Outdoors. Larry, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
You are one of my first 50 guests way back when. It’s exciting to get caught up here. I know you’ve got some announcements to make about what’s happening with Full Range Outdoors. Why don’t we talk about the start off and tell me how education and teaching kids have changed over the years? That’s important because we’re going to talk about incorporating youth in the outdoors. What are the students thinking these days?
I’ve been doing it for years now and it has changed a lot. When I first started, to me, it was a little bit more like when I was in school. Technology and things have changed so much over the few years. Students in nowadays’ world live in an instantaneous world, everything they do and they expect instant feedback. When we were younger, we sent letters, we sent mail and it may take some time for someone to respond back. In nowadays’ world, they are used to using the computer or the smartphone sending a Snapchat, text or tweets and expecting instant feedback. That’s something that has changed and that leads over into the classroom as far as they teach. When I started, it was paper, pencil and textbooks. Now it’s laptops, iPads, Smartboards and a lot of times you don’t even have hard copy textbooks, everything is right on the computer. You take the test, send it to the teacher like that. There are so many different things that have changed over the years.
One thing I know with my grandkids is that their parents know if they have an assignment or not and it’s posted. How does that extra work for you because I think you’ve got four classes, 20 kids, 30 kids, 100 kids a day and everybody got assignments? Instead of sitting there with your book and checking them off like in the old days, that’s what you did, you had to receive and not receive. Now you are going to type it in and then respond to the parents. The communication may be good, but I’m thinking of the workload.
That’s another aspect. I’m glad that you brought that up. The way things are set up now, in the past students did their work, they turned it in, you mark it down in a book and they got a report card every nine weeks or six weeks. Now whenever I write an assignment, I put it in the computer and the parents and students if they have the app on their phone, they get an instant notification when I put the grade in. Parents know within minutes after a student takes the test what they received on it, though that presents some challenges. It’s a good thing. It’s good communication. Parents are up-to-date on what their students are doing, but I tried to explain to my students that if you sat and watch that, it can go up and down. You may turn in an assignment now that may not be so great and your parents may think you’re doing bad, but tomorrow you can make that up. The next grade may bring your score up. That presents some challenges like that, communicating and explaining how it all works.
Can you do all that posting during the school day or is that nighttime work?
I could do that at any time during the school day. I can do it at home from my laptop or do it at school. I’ll give you another example, here in Kentucky the weather is extremely cold. We have some water issues freezing up so we didn’t have school. We have what’s called an NTI day and the students actually do work from home. They canceled the school day, but they are doing lessons that we have loaded on the computer or a program they can go to so they do their lessons at home. If they have any trouble, they can message me on my computer and I can help them with that stuff.
What subjects do you teach?
I teach health and college health. We have an adult credit class at our high school where I’m also a professor through a university and students can take college classes at the hospital. I teach freshman-level.
Readers, you may be saying, “This is a whitetail show. Where is the hunting?” We’re going to get into that part where I’m trying to tie in for everybody because one, it’s important to know what the heck your kids are doing. Two, it’s important to get the kids outdoors and that’s one of the big things Larry strives to do. What he and his wife strive to do is get youth outdoors. Let’s talk about rather in the classroom, how do we get Jimmy, Suzie, Bob and James out into the forest? Maybe they are not hunting, maybe they are fishing or hiking. I don’t know, and to me, I don’t care. Let’s get those kids outdoors.
Anything to be outdoors, it doesn’t matter what they are doing. How do we do that? We can have programs at our school on things to help them do that. That only goes so far and there is a limited amount of what teachers or someone can do when it comes to someone else’s children. If we keep them interested in it and answer questions that they have, explain to them how they can be successful at doing things and stuff and make it interesting. They see the things that I do or that my wife does and my son, he is part of our show. He is a junior at the high school I’m at. They see the things that we do and it keeps them interested in it. When they come questions, it’s important that we take our time and not to think that we’re an adult or we’re somebody special because we have the opportunity to go to Florida and hunt or do something or go to Kansas. We take the time to talk to them and answer the questions that they have and things like that.
What are five things that you would recommend to the audience who have kids or who have neighbor kids that’s maybe a single parent? What should they do to get those kids to engage in the outdoors?
One is to get them to engage in the outdoors and would be available to talk to them and answer questions. If at all possible, if you have the opportunity to take them with you, maybe take them fishing or something, take some time out of your day to do that and to get them outdoors. If you have the opportunity to volunteer anytime, that’s a big thing whether it would be volunteering with Little League Baseball, a local archery club or anything like that. People volunteer sometimes, that’s great. Possibly if you have any extra equipment that you no longer use, fishing poles, an old bow. At times, I’ve tried to help kids out maybe give them some scent stuff that they can use. If you have any extra equipment to pass along, that’s a good thing. Another thing to get them outdoors would simply make it look interesting. The things that we do, make it seem interesting, fun and successful.
Thanks for that. Readers, you might check out your state’s DNR, departments of wildlife, whatever it is in your conservation organizations because they have kid programs. You have to go out. You have to volunteer and get involved one way or another. That’s the best way that I know how to do it. Get involved with something and it doesn’t matter what it is and then start inviting kids and get them exposed. You’d be amazed if you take a kid out here. You take him up to 10,000 feet and the sun comes up or goes down, or an elk bugles or they see a mule deer. They might see a cat or coyote, it doesn’t matter, if they experience something and it’s like, “This is something else.” They see something that if you didn’t take them, they wouldn’t see it. That’s my message. Let’s stay right with that. You mentioned something taking the kids out and having fun. Why is that so important in our world? It makes all the difference in all that to the bone collectors. There’s nothing wrong with collecting bone, but sometimes they think we missed the hunt because we’re working too hard to try to get Mr. Wonderful.
I get caught up in that myself. It turned into a job when you’re chasing after the big rack and missed out on the enjoyment of it. It’s important to get him out there. The inches in their life, it can be a matter of inches where a kid goes one way or the other. There are so many things out there in this world for them to be getting involved in. The technology that we have about would be a bad thing. It could be a great thing but it could be a bad thing. Our students or kids, they spend a lot of time with that technology and a lot of time around the negative things. A matter of institute can change their life and send them one way or the other. It’s important for them to have the chance to see the good things and the good outdoors and experience something that they would normally get a chance to do.
In yourself, how do you make sure you’re having fun? You’ve got a production company on Full Range Outdoors and that sometimes I’ve been told can turn into a job. It’s fun and everybody likes the film, but that one kill shot might be 20 to 30 hours.
I have learned that quickly over the course of the last couple of years especially getting into filming it. It can take the joy out of it and you get caught up in chasing a big deer or turkey and getting it on camera. Hunting hours and hours, you get caught up in it for sure and it can take the joy out of it. I have experienced it myself. I get frustrated and then maybe hunt with my dad, he is also part of the show and I was in one of those points this year. I’ve passed up some deer and then it was coming back and the one I was after went coming around. I was getting a little bit frustrated and I think he could tell that. He gave me some words of wisdom and he would laugh or mention something and then you see that sun come up and then you think, “Chill out. Relax a little bit, enjoy what you’re doing.”
To get kids out in the outdoors, simply make it look interesting, fun and successful. Share on XTo me, it’s those little moments that make up the hunt. Like everybody else in the world, I don’t get something, I don’t kill something, I don’t harvest something every time I go out. It doesn’t happen. Every single hunt I go out, I got something to take away from that hunt. An owl hooting, a turkey gobbling, a pack of coyotes raising a ruckus, all those little things are meaningful to me. That’s one thing I would shout out to our audience reading this. Find the joy in the hunt and we all want to kill that buck or whatever we are after. There is so much to enjoy in a hunt with your best buddy, your wife, your kids, and on and on. Some of the best times I’ve had with my son is in a goose bed. The sun comes up and you sit in there all day so you got a lot of time between naps to chitchat and find out what the heck is going on. Those are the great times to me. The older I get, the more important they are. What are your thoughts?
I couldn’t agree more. It sees the sun come up. I was hunting and there were some turkeys starting to gobble and stuff. You don’t hear as much in the lunar time but enjoying those little moments. To me, you want to harvest an animal and you want to get it on film, I enjoy those things and having the opportunity to hunt with my dad and my wife, my son. Sometimes the best part of our hunt is me and my son coming back and getting lunch on the way home and spending time together. I couldn’t agree more with you, that’s the same things that I enjoy out of.
Let’s start unpacking the Full Range Outdoors. Why did you set it up? Where are you going with them?
We set it up a few years ago. I wanted to be involved in the outdoor industry and do something primarily with hunting. We do fishing and other things and I wanted to get involved. I want to do something, do some riding or maybe some pictures and filming. We got started with it and as we moved on when we started filming, more people started liking what they’ve seen or talked to us about it. It snowballed from there and we got the opportunity to work with a lot of great companies and I enjoyed the filming part.
I do most of the time on self-filming especially when it comes to whitetail hunting. I found that I enjoyed it in a way that it calms me to get the nerves that come up when the deer start to come. I found when I was working my camera and doing things like that, I was keeping myself occupied and a little less nervous when it comes to that part. One thing led to another and we started a YouTube channel and starting putting videos on there and videos on Facebook. We had the opportunity to talk with the Hunt Channel and they like the work that we’ve been doing and one thing led to another. We’re getting things lined out to start going on their networks.
When you go on the Hunt Channel, do you have to pay them or is there no money change in hands? How does that work to people up there going, “I’d like to be in the Hunt Channel?”
There is so much involved and I’m still learning everything about that. When it comes to your show airing on the Hunt Channel or most other networks, you pay for airtime and you have the timeslots. Airtimes may vary depending on what platform you’re doing or whether you’re in primetime or one of the lesser big time and stuff. You have a slot usually first, second, third, fourth quarter and you have so many shows that you can produce and put on there. You pay the airtime and then it’s up to you to tell commercial slots to where you have sponsorship dollars and things to cover this cost.
A type of show, 30 minutes video, not primetime, what’s that going to run a guy or gal?
Typically, I want to say about $75 a week at least. Different networks will be different pricing, but about $75 to maybe $100 a week for about thirteen weeks.
$1,300. We’re not talking about the Pursuit Channel or Sportsman Channel. We’re talking a lower tier if you will, but it’s still an outlet and your work is being put out there. Can you do the same thing with Instagram or a Facebook account?
Yes, you could. We’ve been doing it with Facebook and on our YouTube channel, so it’s close to the same step. When we decided to go with the Hunt Channel, we turned hours into more of a business and looking to work with sponsor dollars and commercial time and stuff. With the Hunt Channel, we’ve got access to be on their different networks. You can get the show on Roku, Apple TV, and Amazon Fire and watch it live, or the video on demand on their website and they have a DISH Channel as well.
Did you look at GEN7 Outdoors?
No. I have heard of them and stuff, but I haven’t looked at their stuff yet.
It’s a town simpler. They were out there too as there are probably hundreds of people that are outlets, aggregators, then their production and you’re out there. I think that’s fun. You and your wife, your son, your dad, it’s a family affair and you put some stuff together and for those out there self-filming. What kind of gear are you using?
I use a Canon. Most of my filming is done with Canon R700. It’s your basic video camera and it uses external mics on things with it. My second angle cameras, I work with UltraProX cameras. I used the muddy camera arms and your basic tripod things. That’s most of the gear that I use and then edit and produce my own stuff at home.
You’re doing all your own editing. Self-filming, you don’t need double sets. How do you get all the arms and all the gear up there, plus your bow, your thermos for food or sandwich, or something like that? How does all that work out without spooking every single deer in the forest?
Here’s what I do other than having a heavy pack. Unless I go somewhere else to whitetail hunt, the way I have it set up is we have a lease and all of the sets, all the stands that I have, I have some camera arm that I leave there and whether one of my Muddy arms or something. A lot of them, I have a camera arm already set up there. All I have to do is carry the camera in and then upon hunting a blind or something, I take the tripod in with me, I have extra attachments set up, figure out a way to hook up and stuff to mount to the size of the stand of things. That’s how I set it up on a property that I’m spending most of my family hunting. If I go somewhere else, I got a smaller camera arm that I take and pack it all in.
Are you using sticks to get up then and hang on stands?
Respect what you're doing and respect the land. Leave it better than the way you found it. Share on XMost of everything that we use is ladder stands.
They are hard to run a gun with. I know some guys that use the hang-on stands and they film that way, but they’ve got everything down to the minimum list and pure of sense. They will go in and set up, get the camera up, get the bow up, they will sit to shoot and it’s not even like that.
That’s another thing. You have to get in early to set all that stuff up. I always like to be in an hour before daylight to hunt. You’ve got to get in before daylight to get everything hooked up and then set down, let it all settle back down.
When you are in your treestand, do you use headlamp filters like a red or green, any filters? Are you using white light?
It’s white light.
Doesn’t it seem to bother the deer?
No. In my experience, it hasn’t. I’m learning all the time so I’m always willing to change, but it’s the way I run it so far.
Do you take any B-roll before or after the harvest or the kill shot?
Occasionally it’s before but mostly after.
The squirrels right above your head, you wouldn’t take a shot at him before you killed your deer?
I do on occasion but most of the time after.
Why is that? You’re sitting there, the sun is coming up and there are plenty of B-roll opportunities.
I can say it all depends. Sometimes I do shoot some things before, but I’ve always tried to make sure that I don’t spook anything while I’m sitting there. It depends on the situation.
Reach out to Larry on Facebook or get ahold of him one way or another. He is a teacher at heart so more and willing to share with you some of his secrets that will help you get started if you want to go down the road of being a videographer.
I never think of myself as the professional or someone that knows everything, but anything that I’ve learned I’ve been more than happy to have it pass on.
It’s a great segue passing on the hunting tradition. We talked about that and that we wanted to explore a little bit. Let’s go back to where yours began and how you’re passing that hunting tradition on to family, friends and people that you don’t even know.
My hunting tradition began as early as I can remember, as a little boy probably five or six years old, going hunting with my dad. I can remember tagging along with his squirrel or do something like that. I would be there with him, walking and looking at stuff. As I got a little older spending time with my uncles, my dad and his two brothers, we did a lot of rabbit and squirrel hunting. I got into deer hunting later in life. I grew up with them and learned all about the outdoors from them, what it means to be outdoors, respect the outdoors and everything that it can bring to us.
Those traditions started with me from the earliest of ages. As I got older, I wanted to pass them on to my son and my daughters as well. They are not hunters, but the importance of being outside. When they were smaller, I was taking them fishing. It’s having the opportunity to hunt with my son and teach him the things that my dad or my uncles taught me and getting to hunt when the opportunity presents itself, which is pretty optimum. My dad and my son at the same time, getting to watch my dad teach him the same things that he taught me.
With scent blockers, nothing is at 100% Share on XThat’s great to have your dad still around. What are one or two things that he tells you early on that you’re carrying it forward now?
Not even so much saying it is his actions. Respecting the land and don’t tear things up, don’t put something down to be cutting it down, don’t leave your trash. He is a quiet person. It’s more or less his actions that did things learning from example from him. Respect what you’re doing, respect the land, leave it better than the way you found it.
How do you think Full Range Outdoors is helping to pass on the hunting tradition?
I’ve seen things that I didn’t realize that we were doing as far as hunting tradition and stuff is that people are coming and talking about it. Whether it be an adult or a young kid and engaging and being so excited about seeing the things that we were doing. Some of them may not have the opportunity because we’ve been blessed to hunt different states, South Carolina, Florida or Kansas. Chart everything from turkey hunting to gator hunting and people they see that are running to him on the street, I had no idea that they would feel that way about it. They talk about how great it was to see us doing that and communicate on Facebook and leave messages. It gets them excited about going out and hunt. Some of the kids where I teach at and seeing the community they want to know about how we used that Denver Deer Scent to make that scrape with. How can I do that? How do you do this? How do you do that? It’s giving me an opportunity to teach many people things about the outdoors that I never realized I would be able to do.
This is the point of the show where we will talk about gear and the last piece of gear that you bought. I had one said, “I picked myself up a new F150, 4×4.” That’s a heck of a piece of that gear. What was the last piece of gear that you bought? Why did you buy it?
One piece of gear is my Ozone bag from Scent Crusher. I worked with them and picked it up there, but that’s the piece of gear that I found that has been extremely valuable. In my opinion, using the Ozone Gear Bag and their Ozone Go that you plug in your cigarette lighter in your truck when you’re going hunting, I have found this great for eliminating odor. I honestly can say that I cannot remember a time all season that I had an issue with the deer landing me and scaring them off and stuff like that. My gear bag has been a valuable piece of equipment.
How many sets or suits can you get in the gear bag?
It depends on the early season or late season. You can put several suits in there. I don’t like to fill it too full to make sure everything gets circulated. As long as you’re talking about your stream heavy coat stuff, you can put your base layer, your top layer, hat and everything in there and zip it up. You can turn it on anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes and the Ozone works and eliminates the odor.
Since you’re a teacher now and some people already know how Ozone works. Why don’t you take us through it, why you go Ozonics and you’ve got Scent Crusher? Some great companies out there are using ozone technology to blow our scent away or eliminate the scent. How does Ozone work?
I wish I could tell you exactly how it works, but I do know that it filters through. My understanding is it removes the odors and the deer do not have an issue with smelling it. When you use the product and some people will use it and they say, “I can smell my clothes,” can the deer smell that? It has a distinctive odor to it, but what it does is it’s putting the Ozone in there and then that’s it, something that a deer doesn’t smell or doesn’t recognize being an issue. I said I don’t know the ins and outs exactly, but it’s something that it doesn’t bother the deer at all.
The Ozone that is in there and jumps on the molecules, sweat molecules, dirt or whatever. Does it change everything over and replace that smell with the Ozone smell?
If I’m not telling you wrong, it replaces it with the Ozone smell.
Rather than a charcoal filter where it filters it out and the input is all that sweat, out of it come out when there is no sweat or anything. Companies have made a gazillion of dollars on scent blockers, all of them with the carbon and I have some of that stuff. Some days it works and other days it doesn’t.
There is nothing that is 100%.
I didn’t have too many sits because of by happenstance that I remember one morning I knew I was in the right place and all of a sudden I hear this deer coming off the hill. He was going plunk and then he jerked up and went, “Sugar bits.” He smelled me and he couldn’t see me because I was on the other side of the dock. The wind had carried right to him and it could have been a twenty-yard shot easily. I was right exactly where I needed to be and I’m wondering, “If I had Ozonics, Scent Crusher or any of that, could he have slipped in on me?” I’ll never know but that’s interesting.
If you’ve got some input on that question utilization of Ozone, send me an email at [email protected] and I’d like to hear what you have to say. I have heard a lot about it and talked to people about it and it has done a great job with the Pro Staff. The companies that we’re even talking about are doing an excellent job, supporting the people and getting the product out into the field. With that, we’re going to move right along and talk about the 2017 deer hunt, how that went and we know you did some filming. Did you put a buck or doe on the ground? Did you get meat in the freezer? What happened?
This has been one of the most successful deer seasons that I’ve had and I did only harvest a doe. I passed on multiple bucks. I say it’s been one of the most successful because here in Kentucky, I got four tags. I could have filled those tags at least three times over with all the encounters with deer that I had, going to enjoying the sun coming up and all that stuff. That’s what made it so successful to me that I have all those encounters with deer at the close range most. I could have shot him with a bow.
I took a doe in early October and was blessed to get that all on film and stuff so that will be in an episode. After that, I had the opportunity multiple times to shoot more doe and bucks. I had several bucks. We were hunting a new property that we picked up and it was our first year on the property. After I got the information and stuff, I had some nice bucks in pursuit of those and passed up a lot of smaller bucks along the way. I took one doe but had the opportunity to take a lot of buck and deer.
One thing I know, Whitetail Heaven Steve McCauley, they shoot some big bucks and there are some big bucks being taken in Kentucky. Why did you think that is?
I was talking about that with someone that when you read a lot of things, Kentucky seems to be on the top five every year in big bucks. I think it’s two different things, one, let’s say you have the eastern part which I’m in. We have a lot of mountains and a lot of things like that. The deer can get lost in those mountains. They are a little harder to find and you don’t have this far shot, but there is a lot of oak trees, white oaks or red oaks. There are a lot of things in there for him to get good nutrition, to grow big and to stay hidden in the thickness. There are some big deer coming out of this part of the state. You’ve got the western part which you have the farmland. It resembles a lot of Ohio and Kansas in that type of thing. You’ve got deer that are getting big on corn and things like that in the western part. It goes two different ways, you’ve got the farm deer and the mountain deer that are growing. Either way, you get some pretty big deer.
Kentucky used to be a slipper state, not so much anymore. We’re talking large deer but we’re talking about a good quantity deer like in Buffalo County. I have been hunting that for a long time, and there’s 200-inch deer there, but the numbers get fewer and fewer. One of my buddies who outfits or guides made it possible for people to go hunting. They took a bunch of deer, but 150-ish was their top end. I think they had one above that everything was Pope & Young to those 150 bucks. They are great deer, tremendous deer, but Buffalo County has a pretty good reputation of pushing out some large deer and things seem to be changing.
If you’ve got some input on that, get hold of me at [email protected]. I’d like to hear your questions or your thoughts on that. You think about the whitetail industry which you’re a part of and I’m part of. It’s fun I get to talk to guys and gals all over North America and that’s fun for me. Every show I pick up something new from my guest, that’s for sure. Having said that, I’d like to thank Larry May, Full Range Outdoors, for being a guest. I can’t wait when we catch. It’s fun to go back around and have a guest that I had early on and then see what they are doing. They could see what I’m doing. Thank you so much. Take care of that good wife of yours because I know she has got to have the patience of a saint.
I can’t ask for one better.
—
In the next episode, we’re going to head down to Tennessee and connect with Stacie Walker. She is the CEO of Prym1 Camo and she knows more than that. I’m excited for you guys and gals to hear her because she is going to tell you what it takes to build a brand, what it takes to break into the outdoor industry. She has expanded her business to include fishing, licensing, all sorts of things. Do you want your truck wrapped with Prym1? That’s going to happen. Sit back, relax, take notes and read what Stacie Walker tells about her story and journey with Prym1.
important Links:
- Full Range Outdoors
- Guests – Larry May past episode
- YouTube – Full Range Outdoors Channel
- Facebook – Full Range Outdoors
- Ozone Gear Bag
- Ozone Go
- Ozonics
- Scent Crusher
- [email protected]
- Stacie Walker – next episode
- Prym1 Camo
About Full Range Outdoors
Our Purpose and Mission
Full Range Outdoors is a family-owned and operated adventure into the outdoors. We have always enjoyed hunting and fishing and the outdoors has always been part of our life. My wife and I enjoy spending time together and sharing our passion with others. This is why we decided to start our own outdoor company in hopes of spreading our love of the outdoor lifestyle.
FRO is dedicated to promoting hunting, fishing, products, and services through video, pictures, and stories. Our vision is to travel to a variety of locations and to bring our adventures back home to you. We will do this in a family setting and give all of the honor and glory to God.
Our adventures will be documented on this site for all to read about and enjoy. It is our desire to bring you a product that you can enjoy and share with your friends and families for years to come. Our stories will be dedicated to all of those that have come before us that love this lifestyle and to those that share our passion and spirit.
We look forward to where the future takes us and hope to make many new friends along the way. Come join us and share in our love of the outdoors!