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Larry Mitchell Co-Founder Country Camo Outdoors
Welcome to another episode of White Tail Rendezvous. This is your host Bruce Hutcheon and we’re going to head to the Mid-West today and we’re going to talk to Larry Mitchell. Now Larry and his wife Jeana have Country Camo Outdoors. Larry also runs a hydrographic dipping business and Larry you’re going to have to tell me about that one and Larry’s been a hunter for a long time. so, Larry, welcome to the show.
Larry: Thanks for having me, Bruce.
Bruce: Well, let’s talk about, let’s start it right off, Country Camo Outdoors that you and Gina have, why don’t you share with the listeners what it is, what you’re trying to accomplish with it, and how they can get in touch with you if they have some interest in finding out more.
Larry: All right, great. Well, I guess Country Camo Outdoors was, I guess it’s been a passion I’ve had for a long time. growing up I watched Fitzgerald, his videos and stuff and always dreamed about doing that myself. What we’re about is trying to get people involved in the outdoors as far as kids, disabled kids, veterans, and just the ordinary Joe that’s never been in the woods before. We mainly rely on our sponsors, donations, stuff like that and much of it comes out of our pocket as far as things that we put on. We do a kids’ fishing day in the Spring, whatever. If anyone’s interested in getting a hold of us we do have a website, Country Camo Outdoors where they can look as up and see our staff on there and everything else.
Bruce: Great. You mentioned youth and veterans and getting them involved more in the outdoors. What type of activities do you get them involved in?
Larry: Oh, right now we’re trying to get a veteran’s hunt scheduled for some lucky veteran out there. We’ve got a couple places, one up in Michigan that we’re looking into getting the hunt sponsored with them. As far as the kids go we do a kids’ day out, usually during the summer or we take them out to a lake, we’ll have games, and feed them. They usually end up getting free fishing poles and free tackle. [inaudible 00:02:33] kids out there, I mean they’re the future of this sport.
Bruce: Why do you think kids aren’t in the out of doors so much these days?
Larry: Well, it’s come down to the old video games are pretty much taking over kids’ lives in my opinion of it. You’ve got a lot of parents that don’t know anything about hunting, never been in the outdoors, I think a lot of it started with…It’s kind of like a babysitter for some parents, keep your kid occupied, give them a video game. But just [inaudible 00:03:08] be my opinion.
Bruce: How about the veterans? How do veterans get in touch with you if they want to go out and do an activity with you guys?
Larry: Well, they can get a hold of us, we’ve got the numbers on our website or go through our website and get a hold of us, leave us a message, send us a message, email, anything like that.
Bruce: And any age restrictions?
Larry: No. No age restrictions. As long as they’re…As far as kids go they’ve got to be able to know what they’re doing, know they’re going out in the woods to hunt, they’ve got to be able to hold a gun I guess. That would be the only restriction as far as kids go.
Bruce: Now in your state they have to have a hunter safety card, would that be correct?
Larry: For like three years you can get an apprentice license which they just have to accompany a licensed hunter who’s not hunting. So they can do that for, I believe it’s three years before they get their hunter’s education certificate.
you told me in the warm-up that your mom taught you how to shoot a gun and enjoy the out of doors.
Bruce: All right. Now let’s go back and you told me in the warm-up that your mom taught you how to shoot a gun and enjoy the out of doors. Let’s talk a little bit about that and then you also said when you were in grade-school that somebody brought a deer or something to school or you saw a deer at school. So first let’s talk about your mom and then let’s talk about that experience in grade-school.
Larry: My mom, she was a country girl. Grew up in Concord, Ohio. She was always into shooting guns and stuff like that, got me into…I showed interest in it after the grade-school episode with the deer and everything but she got me into shooting guns and got me out in the woods. First hunt, you know, took me out. Killing my first squirrel with an old .22 lever action. I guess I was hooked from there on. I believe that was in like fifth grade or so. So, yes, it’s been a joy of mine ever since. As far as grade-school goes I guess my deer addiction began in first grade where one of the kids in the school, their father brought a deer in during gun season and I happened to see it and I was fascinated with it. After that I started tracking deer through the snow and I actually jumped a couple deer when I was probably third or fourth grade out roaming in the woods myself and just became…I don’t know, I guess it just went from there and I just became addicted to it.
Bruce: Now you said that you’d taught yourself to shoot a recurve and took some target practice out on some frogs there. So tell me about where you got the recurve from and how that all came to be.
Larry: The recurve was a [inaudible 00:06:49], never forget it. My oldest sister was dating a guy and he actually gave it to me, gave me a few aluminum arrows and I set a target up in my yard and every day I’d go out there and shoot that bow and I got good to where I could pin a frog to the ground at 20 yards and just went from there, went into some [inaudible 00:07:18] fishing with it and then was able to shoot some carp with it. And I was really good with it and then I went to compound which kind of messed with me, I guess, because I was very good at instinctive shooting and then I went to sights so it kind of threw me a loop there for a minute. But it’s been years since I’ve picked the recurve back up but I’m hoping to get back into it here soon.
Bruce: Yeah. Traditional archery, there’s all sorts of bows out there but I enjoy shooting a recurve and or a longbow. One of my sons makes longbows and so we’ve had a lot of good times doing that. I never got good enough to hunt with it and that’s on me just for not practicing. Hey, at the top of the show I said “hydrographic dipping business”, what is that? I’m sure our listeners, somebody might know out there, but I sure as heck don’t. So why don’t you tell us what that’s about?
Larry: All right, let’s see. I’m getting business as Country Camo [inaudible 00:08:29] hydrographic [inaudible 00:08:30]. And what we do, right now our FFL’s are in progress so we can’t do complete guns but most guys they go out and they buy a camouflaged gun or you can get one, this black synthetic cheaper which is black and we can actually put the camo on it for you. We can do all kinds of things. Usually the rule of thumb is that if you can submerge it in water more than likely it can be dipped. Anywhere from release to automobile parts, I’ve done some trail cameras they want camouflaged. But the process is you have a piece of film that kind of reminds you of a wax paper but it’ll be camouflaged that’s applied to water of a certain temperature. An activator’s sprayed on it and it actually turns the ink that’s been laid on the paper to liquid and then you’re able to dip your product down through it. There’s a few more steps involved to it than that, but that’s pretty much the gist of it.
Bruce: Now I understand. Hydro, water, graphic, graphic design and I’m going, “Okay. Now that makes sense.” So if somebody had a rifle, a bow, any piece of equipment and they wanted to put a design, camo, or whatever on it they can get in touch with you and you could do that for them.
Larry: Sure can. Yeah. Be more than happy to.
Bruce: For the most part.
Larry: Right.
Bruce: Yeah. I’m sure there’s some things that you can’t. But anyway, well that’s great. Thank you for sharing that because I hadn’t seen that word before and I’m going, “I wonder what that does.” Well, let’s get into the white tail hunting part of it. How old were you when you first shot your first deer?
Larry: There was years I went without shooting a deer. Growing up in Stanton County, lots of wooded areas. It was hard to find them but I would say I was probably right around 15. Maybe a little older. No, I’d say probably 15 years old when I shot my first buck with my bow [inaudible 00:10:58]. Nothing huge but to me it was a trophy because it was my first harvest with a bow.
Bruce: Heck yeah. Now was that with your recurve?
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