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Host: Welcome everybody out there in the world of Whitetail Rendezvous. Welcoming to our community today is Chris Grassi, and found and owner of Low Country Bow Hunters. Chris, welcome to the show.
Chris: Nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
Host: Well, let’s talk about Chris. You’re founder of a bow hunting group, Low Country Bow Hunters, and then a pro staffer. Chris, for the guys and gals out there that one to become a pro staffer, let’s just jump right into that.
Chris: For me, it was the networking thing. Facebook and social media are such great tools for building a profile and getting people to notice you. I started Low Country one day out of my house and it started from a desire to find the best and most useful gear without spending a fortune on whitetail hunting. If you’ve hunted whitetails at all, you know that it becomes an addiction and it’s just this thing that grabs a hold of you. You can drop a ton of money on it. And I found that a lot of things weren’t working so with Low Country, we do gear reviews and stuff like that.
Host: What are the responsibilities for a pro staffer of a mainline whitetail company?
Chris: It depends on your definition of pro staffer. I generally like to use the term field staff for what I do.
There are a lot of different terms for pro staff and it kind of has a weighted thing, but it’s a really good, really good platform to get yourself into the industry if that’s what you’re looking for. Starting as a pro staff for anybody, just promote their page and promote the product and you can work your way up from there.
Host: You just shared a couple of recommendations of how to get started. Can you share a little bit more about a guy’s gal out there says hey, I really want to be part of this industry and maybe the best way to get into it is either field or pro staffer. What are the three or four or five steps that you would recommend somebody take?
Chris: For me, like I said, it was networking. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, friend guys like me. There are a lot of guys out there who are like me and want to get other people in the industry, want to share what we love and what we do so much. For me, I got a guy Ken Fisher, who I believe you spoke to or are going to speak to, my good buddy. I went and hunted with him through Pro Staff and at the end of that trip,
Like I said, friend guys like me. You never know. I just posted a message on Facebook saying Pro Staff is looking for pro staff. So guys like me who are not necessarily, we’re not famous, we’re just doing it because we love it, you know, friend us on Facebook. Talk to us. Network. Talk to as many hunters as you possibly can on social media. If you ask enough, you never know.
Host: Thanks for that. Let’s talk about your love for whitetails.
Chris: There’s nothing like it.
Host: You got all the time you need.
Chris: There’s nothing like it. I started hunting for maybe different reasons than everybody else did. For me, it was about the journey of being outdoors. I’ve been an outdoorsy kid my whole life. I worked in the outdoor industry, so to speak. I just caught my first gator today solo for my job and had to relocate him and that was an amazing experience. So I’ve always loved being outdoors.
But nine years ago, I picked up a bow and started shooting just for recreation and three years ago, I decided to just go out with a buddy and try hunting. It’s something I wanted to do my whole life but I don’t have anyone in my family who hunts, so there was no one to teach me. And I just kind of picked it up. And from the first time I saw a deer walk out, there was just something about it.
It was magical being out there sitting in a tree stand 20 feet in the year. Nature opens up to you in a way that you don’t get anywhere else, doing anything else. When you’re motionless in full camo, nothing pays attention to you, the world becomes a completely different place. And it’s an amazing, amazing experience to live through and to watch.
I always say that when I’m in a tree stand, I’m just 20 feet closer to God. I’ve said it so much and I believe it. And whitetails, to me, are the hardest thing that a hunter can do. And to bow hunt whitetails is a challenge that, it has an amazing adrenaline rush that goes with it and being able to get in 20, 25 yards of that animal and knowing that a whitetail is just programmed to detect you and find you and get away from you, being able to get within that yardage and pull off that shot on such a beautiful animal is, there’s nothing like it.
Host: Thank you for sharing that. Let’s talk about a couple aha moments. An aha moment is when the light bulb goes on. You’ve been struggling with something in your white tail hunting, your techniques, gear, whatever it might be, and then all of a sudden, you go, oh man, I should have thought about that a month ago, a week ago, or an hour ago. Can you share a couple of those with us?
Chris: Yes. I had a really good one this year, this past deer season. I had been after an 8-point all season long and I actually got him within 15 yards of me but was shaking so hard I couldn’t draw the bow. And I didn’t see him for a couple months and I’m the type of person that when I get a set done, I’ve always been the hunter that I leave my sets up, I hunt them, I try not to move them, I try and do as little going in and out as possible and the aha moment this year was moving a tree stand for the first time.
And when I did it, when I reset that set, within two days, I ended up shooting that very 8-point that I hadn’t seen for over two months. After almost getting a shot at him earlier in the season. And that was a light bulb to me. You know, it just said to me you’ve got to go with what your brain is telling you. We practice and we preach and we read and we digest so much information, and you’ve got to go with your gut. If your gut tells you to move that set, that deer’s going to come from this way, you’ve got to listen to it. Sometimes you may be wrong, sometimes it pays off huge.
So that was definitely my aha moment for this year.
Host: Let’s talk about that whole experience because I’m sure there’s listeners that are saying hey, man, that happened to me. First, Chris hunts down the low country in South Carolina, is that correct?
Chris: South Carolina, yes sir. Yes. Home to the longest deer season in the US.
Host: Thank you very much. How long is it, Chris?
Chris: It’s August 15th through January 1st. You get five months of good hunting.
Host: So, he’s a blessed man to have that amount of time that he can get in the hoods and mix it up with whitetails. But let’s go back to the time you reset. How far did you go, what type of stand was it, what type of tree did you take it out of and put it in. Just, let’s talk about that.
Chris: I was hunting in an area. It’s a wetland. It’s mostly pines but there are a few young oaks. At the time, the summer had been hot so it was dry and I knew the deer were coming through there. But it fills up with water and it doesn’t deter them. When it fills up with water, I discovered, in moving my stand, when that water comes in, they actually will take the water into where they go to feed because it covers their tracks, I’m assuming that’s what they were thinking. Maybe it just gives them a sense of they can get in and out without anybody knowing.
And I moved my stand, I moved it 20 yards to the opposite side. I had a nanny doe that had spotted me early on and she kept picking me out of that tree stand every single time. And the big 8-point, I didn’t find this out until later, but he was always only 15 to 20 yards behind her. So when they would come out, she would see me sitting in that stand that I would never move, they would blow and she would run off.
When I moved that stand 20 yards away, to the opposite side, she came out and she looked real hard for about five to ten minutes. Long enough for him to come in on her hindquarter and walk past her. And he came within 15 yards of me and it was a perfect shot. He didn’t run but 20 yards.
I only hunt in hang-ons, I just purchased a climber. I’ve used them before but for safety reasons and getting home to the wife and kids, there’s just something about a hang-on stand that just makes me feel a little bit more comfortable, so that’s generally what I’m hunting out of.
Host: Let’s talk about, you brought up a really key point. The doe came out after a couple of sessions in the stand. She knew you were there.
Chris: Yes, sir. She would look right at me. And if I moved, if I blinked, she would blow. If the wind blew even a little slowly, she would blow. And it took me forever, I was getting frustrated and frustrated and frustrated with this doe seeing me. But I had about four stands back there and she knew three out of the four. And I don’t know why I decided to move the stand that she saw me in the most, but when I did she looked at that tree and I guess it triggered something was off the hedge, it froze her because there was no stand in that tree anymore. So when she didn’t see me, she thought everything was good and he came right in front. It couldn’t have been any more perfect.
Host: And you have that on film, I hope.
Chris: I don’t. When I saw him come out, I run a tacticam on my camera and I wear a head mount and video technology scanner. I don’t have anything special. I’m more of a first person point of view. So I have to reach for it and when I saw his horns clear her head, I knew that with her standing there, there was no way I was going to be able to reach and turn those cameras on, so in the effort to get the deer of a lifetime, I let the camera go.
Host: Well, I think we’ve all heard some lessons learned that, no matter where you hunt, if you’ve got a doe that knows you’re there, I mean, there’s no question about it because she’s hanging out, you never know if that buck is right behind her and coming from the same bedding area. By changing up just 20 yards, just 20 yards, he was able to harvest that buck he hadn’t seen for two months.
Chris: There’s no such thing as a small change in deer hunting. Deer pattern us just as much as we pattern them, and when she saw me sitting in a stand. I probably shouldn’t have been sitting in, I probably sat in it too much, in hindsight. But when she saw that stand was gone all of a sudden that pattern that she had for me was broken and she didn’t know how to react. And it just worked out perfect for me.
Host: I’m writing notes, that’s why I go silent. So folks, I hope you wrote a note on that, because that’s going to go into one of our tips, you know, tips from the experts. And we’ll be sharing that type of information with you later on down the line, off our website. Having said that, let’s talk about you just got a new hundred acres. It’s all yours. What are you going to do? What are you going to do between now and hunting season?
Chris: First thing you do is you get in with as minimal impact on the environment that you can get in. You look around, you get deep. I know a lot of people say not to go deep, but if I don’t know first hand experience what that land looks like. I can look at a map and I can look at an aerial and I can look at topography, I can do all that, but there’s no substitute for experience. If you don’t get in and see what those woods look like. And do it early when the deer know they’re not going to get hunted. So they look at you a little bit different. They don’t look at you with as much fear as they would.
Get in early and get in, walk it, walk it all. See everything, every little holler, every thicket. All the stuff that you know that deer love to eat, love to bed in. Areas where there’s trails. See what kind of animals are around and that kind of thing. Know where there’s water and where there isn’t. And it doesn’t have to be a big pond. If there’s a little creek that you don’t see on an aerial, you would never know where, that may be their water source that they like using because it’s comfortable for them. So first hand experience is 100% first thing I would do.
Next thing I would do is I would hang trail cameras in all the spots that look good. And there’s no wrong amount of trail cameras as far as I’m concerned. Using technology that we have today increases your ability to harvest deer and for me, it’s all about putting food on the table, so harvesting deer puts meat in my freezer and my family gets to eat, so it’s an added bonus. So I would hang, on a 100 acres, if I could do it my way, I’d probably 20 or 30 trail cameras up.
Once you get kind of an idea of where your deer are coming from, then next thing to do would be go in, plant some food plots. Feeders are legal here in South Carolina and we utilize to great benefit. I would hang some feeders and make sure my deer were fed. And I would try and get a count if I could, look for identifying markers on bucks and does, figure out what the doe to buck ratio is, and then in the first season, you really don’t need to be shooting any buck. If it’s a brand new hundred acres, I would be seeing how many does I needed to take during a year. If there was a trophy monster out there, I may go after him a couple times, but it would be mostly seeing how many does I need to take to get a good herd ratio and get them fat and happy and grow my deer up.
Host: I’m writing notes. Grow your deer up. How many people do you think, you know, on their own 40, 80, 100 acres or larger don’t think about growing their deer up?
Chris: A lot. And, you know, predation, disease, bad winters, all that stuff takes a toll on your deer herd. The more you feed them good protein when there’s not, especially if there’s not a lot of available food, the bigger your deer are going to get. The more meat you’re going to get from your deer, the bigger your bucks are going to be. The better their dimensions and genetics are going to be if you’re a trophy hunter looking for racks. So those kind of things are stuff you should think about.
The other thing is you want to hold deer on your property. If you just bought 100 acres or 40 acres or 80 acres or 6,000 acres, if you don’t give the deer a reason to stay, you’re not going to have very good hunting seasons. And you’re not going to have very good land. So holding deer on your property, especially if you live near a lot of hunters, if they’re holding deer on their property, then those deer aren’t coming to yours.
And the key is to give the deer enough food and enough protein and enough shelter and enough cover that they can feel comfortable and then they’ll stay on that property, with each generation the herd increases, you get bigger, better deer. So everybody should be. I think hunting would be done a great benefit if more people thought about taking care of the deer population that they have near them.
Host: Wise information. Talk to me about the resources that you use. You’ve already said that you’re on social networks. You utilize that effectively. Are there any shows, books, YouTube videos, that you say, hey, once a week I’m going to do this to get more information about whitetails?
Chris: For me, it’s more personal contact. As I said in the beginning, hunting has always been the journey for me, and part of that journey is, you know, part of the draw is, I guess I have an old school philosophy on it, but the big draw to hunting is, you know, a bunch of guys sitting around a campfire, swapping stories, and doing what we’re doing right now, you know, you asking me for little tips and information that I’ve gotten over the years. I don’t have a lot of years, but you can gather so much information just by talking to hunters. For me, that’s my biggest, my biggest thing.
If I’m being honest, I’m not really a fan of modern hunting shows. I don’t think a lot of hunting shows disseminate enough useful information to the youth of America. I understand hunting is a multi-million dollar industry and commercials have to be made but it just feels like when you watch a hunting show today compared to when you watch a hunting show 20 years ago, 20 years ago it was more about the journey. Today it’s more about what products they happen to be using that day. So I’m not a big fan of hunting shows.
And if I say there’s one useful bit of information, YouTube is a great source. How-to videos on how to plant food plots have made my food plots that much better. Just watching guys do stuff that I’m thinking about doing. If you get a view of it, and you see someone doing it and you see the results of it, it’s so much easier to disseminate that information into your own hunting property, if that makes sense.
Host: Sure. You mentioned something just in passing a couple of minutes ago. Youth. What are your thoughts on youth in the outdoors today?
Chris: I think there’s not enough of it. I think that that’s a resource that is, it has so much untapped potential. The outdoors, as I said, being in the outdoors. People think hunting is all about killing things, especially anti-hunters. They focus on the end result of what hunting is. And if you stop and take a step back and you look at what hunting is about and what hunting gives to people, and hunters and why they’re such a close-knit group of people. Hunters will always help another hunter, for the most part.
I couldn’t even begin to count the amount of people who, over my hunting career, have stopped to give me advice and told me their little bit of wisdom. You don’t get that anywhere else. Kids today would do great if more outdoor programs and stuff like that were given to them because you get such an appreciation of what life is all about at an early age when you can sit in the woods and watch when the sun comes up and the woods open up. That changes people. And it’s an experience I think everybody should have. And if kids had it an early age and grew up on that and that philosophy, in my experience, they tend to be better adults and better parents and better members of the community.
Host: Does Pro Staff Outdoor Adventures have any special kids programs or anything targeted?
Chris: We are working on a few. Our son was misdiagnosed with autism, autistic, and our two year old was, and it put us in a pretty dark place for a little bit, and coming out of that looking at my faith and my life and my family, coming out of that, I decided that there’s more that can be done. People should do more for autism charities and stuff like that. So, you know, we’re in the works of trying to get something together. Maybe a freebie shoot to benefit autism and stuff like that is all stuff I want to do.
I think some programs that get kids who may not be able to go hunt, like hunter mentor programs, would be awesome. And teaching my kids to hunt is on the plate now for my four and two year old, my four year old is just old enough to where mom is going to let him come out next year.
Host: That’s great. Nothing like having your son or your daughter sitting right beside you and you go, “Shhh. Here he comes. Or here comes the deer, shh, don’t move now, don’t move.” They go, “Dad, there’s a deer!”
Chris: Oh, yeah.
Host: My grandson.
Chris: My proudest moment as a hunter. My proudest moment as a hunter is going to be my son’s first deer.
Host: That’s good stuff. Hey Chris, we’re at the point of the show now where it’s an open mic so you can share about Low Country, you can share about Pro Staff Outdoor Adventures or specific products, tell people how to get in touch with you, name off your Twitter account, your Facebook account, Instagram account. So the mic’s yours.
Chris: Oh, okay. Well, Pro Staff Outdoors is my passion at the moment. It’s a get back to your roots kind of hunting, hunting team, where like I said, and I’ve said it multiple times. We’re a bunch of guys who are strong in our faith and believe that the journey means everything.
So you guys need to come check us out. You’re going to get to see some really cool stuff and come along and hunt with three guys who just enjoy being outside and being in the outdoors and having the journey. You’re going to see some misses. Quite a few of mine. But that’s all right because it’s part of the game.
So yeah, definitely, come check us out. Low Country, that’s my baby. It’s just basically a Facebook community where you can come and post any harvest, big, small, we don’t care. We don’t tolerate any size bashing or trophy hunting bashing or any of that stuff. I mean, like I said, it’s just a group, a community where everybody can come and share their love for the outdoors. Share their love for all things hunting. You don’t have to be a bow hunter. And kind of hang out.
And periodically I do gear reviews, try and help people save a little money. Share the products that I think a lot of people are using and let people how they do. If you’re thinking about buying something, you can feel free to send me a message on Low Country and I’ll be happy to pick it up and review it for you and let you know how it does for us and maybe it can help you a little bit, make your decision a little bit easier. Basically trying to help people save money in what can be an expensive hobby, an expensive way of life. Other than that.
Host: What’s your URL, can I have your URL, U-R-L, for Low Country?
Chris: I would have to look at my phone, which I’m on right now. Just look up, just look up Low Country Bow Hunters on Facebook and you’ll find us.
Host: Okay. How about your Twitter account?
Chris: I am not a Twitter guy. I probably should be, but I’m not. Look me up on my Facebook any time. My name is Chris Grassi and anybody can send me a friend request. I will talk to anybody. I will give you any tips, tricks, anything that I’ve learned along the way. I’m totally an open book, so definitely hit me up on Facebook anytime. And my Instagram should be SCBowhunter. So you can look at pictures we post, do all that kind of stuff.
Host: Chris, it’s been a joy having you on Whitetail Rendezvous. And I hope the listeners picked up as many what I call big buck nuggets or hot tips, from the ideas that you’ve shared and I just welcome you to the Whitetail Rendezvous Committee. Wow, I blew that. I welcome you to the Whitetail Rendezvous community and thank you so much for being on the show and wishing all of the listeners out there, have an awesome day.
Chris: Thank you. Thank you so much.