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Bruce: Here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Joining our community is Jeremy Eudy from Camoed Obsessions. Jeremy say hello.
Jeremy: Hey guys how are you doing?
Bruce: Jeremy tell us just a little bit about your company and the things that you do. We are going to give you full time at the end of the show to let people know how they get a hold of you and where to find you on the web. Just share a little bit about you and your company right now.
Jeremy: Camoed Obsessions Outdoors is basically a [inaudible 00:47]. We want to bring the outdoors to the viewer in a way that the viewer [inaudible 00:53]. We don’t like the stereotypical hunting show. We are basically a show that portrays you and your buddies at home. We are a first person type show. We like that idea. And also we have a patent pending product that we like to push that we are very proud of and we want to offer it to your whole community. We thought at the end of the day you would like to give us a better chance.
Bruce: Lets start right off Jeremy. Talk to us, how did you get started hunting whitetails and how did you get started in your business?
Jeremy: I started hunting whitetails when I was around the age of 14. I grew up farming and never really had time to hunt. I had lots of buddies that hunted. I always wanted the thrill of trying to catch something that I didn’t have any control over. I started in the hunting in North Carolina around the age of 15 like I said. I got into it.
I didn’t know anything about it. I had nobody to show me, nobody to teach me. My father he had to work, he didn’t have time for deer hunting. So I just took it in stride and started going and learned as I went. Before you know it, it was something that kind of took me over and said, hey I want to kill the biggest deer. I don’t really care about killing every deer. I want to kill the biggest deer. How do I find the biggest deer?
I just kind of took it from there and fell into love with it. And then it became an infatuation of “Hey, I want to do it and I want to show it to other people. So let me find a video camera.” I always caught myself coming back to my buddies going, “Hey man I seen this today or I watched this today.” And I thought how great it would be to tape those experiences and bring them back to show other people that have never had that experience or may never get the opportunity. That is how we kind of got into the show and that is a lot of the others. A couple of buddies get together and say, “Hey, this is pretty neat, let’s try this.”
So then we get together and we take it another step forward from that and say, “Let’s start airing it. Let’s start showing it to other people.” We do something a little bit different. And that is what we want people to see. We don’t want people to sit there and watch a show and say, I really like that show. We want people to sit back and say, “I’ve gotta go hunt for this show.”
Bruce: What type of gear, did you start off archery hunting with? And how did that evolved into today.
Jeremy: In North Carolina when I was 15 you could only own a shotgun. I like hunting with archery equipment as well. I started off with a Remington X70 Fault with buckshot. You couldn’t use a solid bullet, it had to be buck shot. So I started out with that. After a couple of years it evolved into the archery side of it. I felt like I wanted to go into the deer habitat where he lives every day and get close enough to be able [inaudible 00:4:47]. That was pretty much how I got into it. I started off with a pair of bows. Back then I shot 250 feet a second, which I thought was the greatest thing I’ve ever had.
Bruce: Just taking a note. I just looked at your site and you have some neat products. Let’s talk about camo. One of the products you do have is the Natural Camo paint I believe, is that correct?
Jeremy: That is one of our sponsors. Yes sir.
Bruce: How do you use camouflage and scent control? Do you camouflage your face and your hands. And then the scent controlled clothing. Let’s talk a ittle bit about that.
Jeremy: Scent is one of the biggest parts of hunting and obviously you aren’t going to get rid of your scent when you go into the woods. It is virtually impossible. What we tried to do is come up with some product that would help eliminate that as much as possible. The best way is to stand down wind in the area, but that is not always possible. So we’ve come up with this combination that we found that is better than any other product that we tried. It actually doesn’t just push the scent aside, it eliminates it. Therefore it’s a better opportunity to hunt that big deer that you just got.
Bruce: So as far as clothing, do you use scent blockers, scent lock, or…?
Jeremy: We don’t, we have camo sponsors that all our guys on film wear. They give [inaudible 06:52]. We wear some of our own as well. We use the scent eliminators and the body wash that we sell. Those factors all together pretty much give us the justification where we feel like we’ve done the best we can do.
Bruce: Let’s talk about last year. You’re hunting, you’re hunting hard. You are seeing a lot of deer and there is one thing or idea or piece of gear that you want to make sure you are hunting with next season, this coming fall. What would that be?
Jeremy: I hunt a lot in the state of Ohio, in Canton. If there is one piece of equipment that if I left my house and got halfway there and didn’t have it, I would turn around and go back. It would be a heated body suit. I have no [inaudible 00:07:59) to a heated body suit but I can promise you that if there is one piece of equipment from November on in the deer hunting season that is the piece of equipment that [inaudible 00:08:11].
Bruce: Let’s talk more about that. Let’s dig in on it. There’s probably a lot of different ways to stay warm in a tree stand or a ground blind. What is so special or what works with that equipment?
Jeremy: It works great for us because you don’t have to wear a lot of bulky clothes going into the woods. You have free range of movement. You can ease yourself in, ease yourself out. Once you get to the stand, you actually get in the suit, and you can stay comfortable , you can sit all day long. We actually wash our heated body suites in our laundry detergent, and spray them down with our scent eliminator and it works great for us. We’ve had a lot of success.
By having [inaudible 00:09:07] heated body suite that allows you to be comfortable all day, we all know the more time you are in the woods, the better you are. That’s why we take a lot of [inaudible 09:22].
Bruce: Listeners, if you’ve never tried heater body suits or something comparable to that, you are really missing an advantage. Last year in Iowa I was fortunate to be on a farm every single day I slipped into a heater body suit, stayed in the stand all day. No, I didn’t fall asleep. I stayed awake. I was comfortable. When I got picked up at the end of the night, I just folded it up- its not that hard to carry. I am going to give a shout out right now, it is a piece of equipment that when it gets cold, you should really consider having.
Jeremy: Absolutely, absolutely.\
Bruce: How about a couple of aha moments. Not just on gear or ideas but something in your whitetail history when you said, “Boy I wish I could figure this out.” Then one day you are in your truck, you are walking into your stand, you are in your stand and all of a sudden there is the answer. The light bulb goes on and you said, “Oh man, I should have thought of that months ago.” Can you share a couple of those with us?
Jeremy: Yeah sure. I truly believe, especially in the southeast, the deer here pattern you as well as you pattern them. They get accustomed to you in a certain way. What I mean is, if you park your truck in the same place and you walk in the woods every day the same way, then those deer expect you to do that. They transform what they do during the day to accommodate you coming in and out.
My aha moment related to that, I had a farm that I had access to and there was only way way in and one way out. I always like to try to have multiple ways in and out for that particular reason, but this farm wouldn’t allow it. I’ve hunted the farm several times and I knew there was a good deer on the farm. I just couldn’t put my hand on how to get in between where he was at and where he was going. I actually gained access, not hunting rights, but access to the property adjacent to us that allowed me to come across their property and get to the area where I needed to be.
With that stand in about 30 minutes that day I killed a deer that I had been trying to kill for two years. For me its not so much getting in the woods, its more about getting out. I always try to plan my way out. Yeah you want to plan going in because you don’t want to waste your time. But when you go in during the evening there’s a lot more deer in the area that you have to come out through than going in.
Don’t get yourself stuck in a rut. Try different things. Try different tips and tactics. What’s the worst thing if they don’t work? You don’t see any deer?
Bruce: Thank you for that. I made a note. I’ve heard other people talk about, “You stalk your stand as stealthy as possible,” and that comes with playing the wind direction and having multiple stands. When you were hunting that farm, did you have only one stand or did you have multiple?
Jeremy: I only had one, the reason for that was I knew where he was staying, and I wanted to concentrate on him, and I knew I could kill him out of that stand. He had just gotten used to me coming in and out of that area. Those deer have a sixth sense. I hope you can understand that well, they know something is going on. [inaudible 00:14:04] They are very smart. Sometimes I give them too much credit, but when you hunt mature deer, me personally whether it is a 120 inch deer or a 180 inch deer, if he’s a 5 or 6 year old deer, he is hard to kill. It doesn’t matter what he’s got on his head, he’s hard to kill.
Bruce: I just made a couple of notes. I was just thinking of a couple of places in Wisconsin that I have unfortunately, a bad habit of going in, going out similar routes. Not exactly the same but similar routes and I know there’s a big deer in there. Let’s go back, you knew there was a decent mature buck in there, did you have trail cameras in there? Did you see him visually yourself in the field in the summer? Let’s talk about that deer.
Jeremy: I did. You know mature deer, 90% of the time he’s going to travel. [inaudible 00:15:15] certain days to where I could get in, and used our products as much as I should. Just trying not to spook the deer as possible. Even when you walk in and you walk out, just do that multiple times, well that deer, he catches it. They lay down low but he knows something’s not right. [inaudible 00:15:44] But this particular deer… we believe in trail cameras and doing our homework. We had multiple pictures of this deer. He stayed very close and would come out at night. We knew he was there but just getting him to move, and us being there. [inaudible 00:16:12] … wasn’t the biggest deer I’d ever killed, but I was very appreciative of it, in the simple fact that I had hunted this deer, and I had put a lot of hard work into him and I had taken the deer on his turf, on his time, in his habitat. And for me that is one of the greatest feelings in hunting is to have is to take a place and pick one deer out to hunt. [inaudible 00:16:47]. I’m not saying that it’s all a game, because it’s very serious, but… when you can take that deer, and you may hunt that deer for a couple years before the moon and the stars and everything lines up, but… there’s no greater feeling in the world than to take the deer from 20 to 30 yars on bow, and to know he’s been avoiding you as long as you’ve been trying to kill him.
Bruce: Let’s talk about how close you think, or you know know that buck, to stand, when you walked in or walked out. How many yards do you think he was away?
Jeremy: He was probably [inaudible 17:27] away. He was [inaudible 00:17:31].
Bruce: So is that 100 yards or 200 yards?
Jeremy: Yeah. I would say probably within 150 yards.
Bruce: I hope everyone is listening to that, because if you are in the right place, you know the buck’s there, you know the deer are there, the herd is in your area and that buck could be under 200 yards, if not 100 yards from you, the whole time you are in your stand. Do you agree Jeremy?
Jeremy: Oh absolutely, that’s one of his best defenses, is to stay put. They’re taught that from the time they’re born, to hide. To stay away from danger, to sit tight.
Bruce: So another piece of puzzle that we are just unfolding here on Whitetail Rendezvous, is that when you know the right buck you want to hunt is in your area, have the confidence, just like Jeremy said, to understand that he is there. Now you have to unlock all the little tricks, all the little secrets to get in the right places. Jeremy had to go around and figure out how else to get in there, and when he did it, he closed the deal.
Jeremy: Right.
Bruce: That’s good stuff, Jeremy, that’s really good stuff. With all the information on the Internet these days, you have plenty of sources for good tips on hunting, tips on gear. What are some of your go-to sites or blogs or forums that you use to get new information about whitetail hunting?
Jeremy: I can’t pick out one particular one, but I’m a firm believer in aerial maps. We use it pre-season, especially on new properties. We use a lot of aerial maps and topography maps. I am firm believer that deer, they use a particular land demographic, I guess you could call it.
In certain areas of the country deer walk on the top of a hill, in certain areas of the country they walk on the bottom. What I have found out of all of that is that we use those tools to look at the property before we get on the property. Then what we do is we get on that property, we find those particular locations that we found on that map that we want to look at. Then what we do is we look at one of the weather websites, or apps that you would call it, which way it says the wind is blowing and we actually check the wind on that particular site, and say okay, well, the weather man says the wind’s blowing north, but actually in this spot it’s blowing west because of the way the wind [inaudible 00:20:51]. So then we know that okay, when the weatherman says it’s blowing north it’s actually blowing west here.
And you may go to 500 yards across the property and arrow is still pointing to the north, but it may be actually blowing northeast. The site we use the most like I said is the aerial maps and the weather. The drops in the barometer, we pay a lot of attention to the barometer [inaudible 00:21:25], one of the guys got tickled last year at his wedding anniversary, he said man, “Man, there’s a front comin’ in, the barometer’s changing, I gotta go.” And I said, “Well what about the anniversary?” “I’ll go after dark, I gotta go hunt.”
Bruce: I am chuckling because unfortunately I’ve done the same thing on my anniversary. [laughter]
Jeremy: Well you’re still married. [laughter]
Bruce: Yes sir, 45 years, it’s worked out. I’ve got a wonderful wife, that’s for darn sure. Hey, let’s talk about how Camoed Obsessions is involved with kids or other conservation groups or involved in the community.
Jeremy: We just filmed in North Carolina last Saturday, our youth season. We put together every year a youth hunt and invite six kids and their families for a local [inaudible 00:22:29] we have a farm.
We put the kids up and take them out and our goal is try to get every one them a turkey. But the big picture of everything is we try to select kids that have never been outdoors, never had the opportunity to take a turkey. Kids that, without us, would not have the opportunity.
We get a lot out of that as a company. We get to give back to the hunting world. Those kids, they’ve never been, you know whether their father’s passed away or he’s not in their life or whatever, there’s always gotta be that one special person that takes you by the hand and says, hey I want you to go experience this, let me show you how to this. And they know for life, in general, but as far as hunting, we’ve all had that certain person that we can look back at and say, hey, that guy taught me what I’m doing and maybe didn’t teach me everything or maybe didn’t teach me right, but he helped at some point along the way.
And that’s what we want to be, we want these kids to look back… they may never go hunting again, but they will always have a story to tell out of that weekend. A good or bad experience, but they’ve got a memory out of that weekend, and that’s what we want to instill into those kids is that, hey, that’s what hunting is. Hunting is a time to enjoy yourself, to relax, and it’s also about memories. We want you to have a memory out of this, that’s one of the big roles that we try to play in the youth hunting world, and that’s one time per year and we look forward to that all year long.
Bruce: Thank you for doing that. Kids are the future of our hunting tradition, and we’ve got a great group of people throughout the country that feel exactly the same way. They are making sure kids are involved in what they’re doing. I personally think it helps you grow your business, network and do all the things that we try to do in a business situation, but you are doing something that is priceless because, as you said, some of these kids will never have the opportunity unless you asked.
Jeremy: Taking a kid hunting, you can’t buy at your local Walmart. That is what I always try to instill in our local community. Do something with that kid in the outdoors that you can’t buy him or her anywhere else. That will be something that will be with that kid for a long time to come.
Bruce: Thank you again. We’re in the wrap up you have an opportunity to talk to the listeners about your company and your products and the people that you have affiliated with. You have a bunch of sponsors on your page so it is your turn at the mic.
Jeremy: All right. Well, first of all I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be on your show. Moving forward I would like for all the listeners to check out our website which is located at www.camoedobsessions.com. Check out our show and check out the great products that we offer and we fully stand behind those products. 100% guaranteed money back with all our products. We put a lot of pride in those products and guarantee that with our products you will greatly increase your success as a hunter. You can find us on Facebook at Camoed Obsessions Outdoors. We are also located on Instagram and Twitter at CamoedObsessionsTV. Like I said, again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity of being on your show and if anybody has any questions, you can feel free to email us or contact us through any of the social media pages. It doesn’t have to be about buying a product, it can be “Hey, I’ve got questions, or what’s a suggestion that you would do here?” Hunting is my passion. I want to help others to become better hunters, because once they become better, they believe in themselves which makes them a better person. That’s what Camoed Obsessions is about, is taking the experience that we have, and the mishaps that we are involved in and spreading them out to other people to help them become a better hunter.
Bruce: Jeremy, well said. It has been an honor and a privilege to have you become part of the Whitetail Rendezvous community. Folks, this wraps up another show. Thank you so much for listening, and may all your hunts be great ones. Bruce Hutcheon your host saying have a fantastic day.