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The hunt is not about the size of the rack
welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. This is your host, Bruce Hutcheon, and today we’re heading to Pennsylvania to sit down with Chris Carr, The hunt is not about the size of the rack. Now Chris is unique because he does all self filming for Primal Instinct and he hunts with a various number of weapons. And Chris we’re excited to have you on the show.
Chris: Oh thanks for having me Bruce.
Bruce: Hey in the warm-up we talked about something that I believe thousands of listeners out there believe in the same thing and that’s family, friends, and the tradition of hunting. So let’s just start right there on the show and let’s talk about that.
Chris: Sure, yeah, we were talking about hunting. I started to ramble on a little bit but I can remember going back I’m 43 now when I was a kid I would watch my dad pack up all his stuff and leave in the van to go upstate and I couldn’t wait until I got old enough to go. And I remember when I turned 12 he came to me and said, “I’ll take you up, but no license, no gun, no weapon.” He said, “I’m going to take you up and we spend time with friends in a hotel.” And he said, “That’s what hunting’s about. It’s not about shooting a deer. It’s about being together in camp telling the stories being around and that camaraderie.”
And we used to stay in a hotel in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, and I’m 43 now, this is back when I was 12 and we get up at 4:00 in the morning go across the street to the diner and it would be packed in there with all the hunters with the Woolrich, the checkered red and black and the goose-down, not like today with all the scent stuff. Guys would be in there smoking and eating a greasy breakfast, getting their coffees to go. We’d drive 45 minutes out to the state game lands park, walk a mile back, sweat our butts off, and then sit there and then freeze and then come back. And I loved every minute of it I’ve been hooked since.
Bruce: You know what everybody has stories about the beginning. Other than your father who were some of the guys and/or gals that helped mentor you to become the hunter that you are today?
Chris: Well my dad was a big one and he had a close friend that actually owned a seafood store that I worked through all through high school and he was a good deal older than my dad and he was kind of the old school hunter and I learned a lot from him. A lot about the old school and checking the tracks and the rubs and the scrapes and transition areas it was Mr. Graham, his name was Bud. Bud Graham. A lot of things I learned from him and one of things I learned from him was sit all day. A lot of guys would go in at lunch and old Bud would say, “No, you’ve got to sit all day if you want to shoot a deer.” And nobody shot more deer than he.
ou mentioned two things, sitting all day and transition areas
Bruce: You mentioned two things, sitting all day and transition areas. Let’s explore transition areas and what they meant to you then and what they meant to you today.
Chris: Yeah, I’m a huge believer in transition areas where…I teach my kids today where a field edge is meeting a tree line or a rock wall. It’s where those two different areas are merging together and to make one of those spots even better is if you can find a pinch point where there’s a transition area where you know those deer are going to use that. They like those transitions areas whether it’s on a ridge or like I said a field line where they can see, where they have options to get away if they’re chased or pressured, play the wind, all those kinds of things. I always say, “We’re part-time hunters trying to beat a fulltime deer.”
Bruce: Guys have told me Chris, that, “Hey Bruce as soon as you get out of your truck they know that there is somebody at their front door. Not even that. They know that there’s somebody at the property line and then it goes downhill from there. So always try to be stealthy going in and coming out because those deer know you’re there. Do you agree with that?
Chris: Absolutely, I try to take every advantage of trying to beat their nose, their eyes, their hearing, anything. If you can get in there if it’s raining and you can get in there a little bit quieter if it rained earlier. I try to take advantage of that. When I hang my stand, I usually go in with a rake and try to brush away as much debris as I possibly can so they can’t hear me.
I walk those transition areas or try to hug those lines no sudden movements just take my time real slow nothing to alert them sight-wise and then I am really particular with my scent. I think you’re never 100% scent free but if you can do all those little tips and tricks washing your clothes either keeping them outside or in a scent free bag. If you drive somewhere, and I’m lucky because a couple of spots I hunt are local and I can walk right out my back door and just go down the road a little bit on a walk, but spraying down when you get there and the playing the wind. What stand are you going to hunt? You know the deer are going to come downwind. You have to be on top of your game. You’re not to going to beat them completely 100% but if you could try to do all those little things, I think they add up. You play the odds or the percentages.
Bruce: Playing the odds I like that. Let’s slip over to the other question sitting all day. And I don’t sit all day early fall September, the warm days of October. The rut, I will sit all day, whenever that is. That starts around the 26th of October until the 10, 12, 14, 15th of November. So if I’m in a stand I’m in there for all day. But what about the other periods the pre-rut, and the post-rut and then the late summer when they’re just in their feeding patterns?
Chris: Yeah, and it’s tough because like I said, I’m 43 I’m married and I have three kids. So just sometimes life dictates that you are not going to be able to sit all day. I really try to work my schedule with work and family and things like that so when it gets to those prime time rut just like playing the odds, like I said before, I try to get in that stand or be somewhere hunting as much as I can. For that early season that’s more of a…I’m just taking a chance and a opportunity. I know I have time I’m going to get in the stand. Now, I don’t go if the wind is really bad or the weather or my wife makes that face when you know you’re in trouble. I save those for later when we’re going to do something in the rut and I think a lot of it depends too some states where you can bait if you’re hunting with bait or if you’re hunting in a cornfield if you’re hunting in their bedroom. I think it depends. There’s not that single brush stroke that paints everything the same.