Getting the Yute Ready for Yute Season

If all goes well, Lil Angus will have a deer by the end of this weekend. Angus is my #3 son. He’s enjoying his first Kentucky Youth Season. He’s been watching me since he was 4. Now it’s his turn. It’s been a long road. His older brother, Moose just finished up his last year as a Yute in 2007. Moose will be off on his own when he starts Muzzleloader Season next weekend.

In the beginning, I purchased a Wigwam pop-up blind for us to sit in together. Angus still wasn’t cool with climbing stands. It worked wonderfully. We would spend many hours at a time looking for deer. He was a patient hunter.

Then I made the Jagende Hutte and that gave us some more room. Angus was able to sit for hours, but he was prone to fidgeting. Having him in an enclosed space made that much less of a problem.

At age 8, Angus started following me into the treestand and he also passed Kentucky’s Hunter Education. However, he was still a bit recoil shy. We tried a bunch of yute rifles, including a $70 M-44 Mosin Nagant with 30-30-esque loads. However, he just was not ready to take a centerfire rifle. By his choosing he decided to back off hunting at 8 and again at 9. He was just happy to go out with me to the Jagende Hutte or the buddy stand and spend a morning.

After I filled the freezer with a big buck last Opening Day, Angus and I spent several nice afternoons just watching for deer from the Jagende Hutte. He was cool with that, and we both had a good time.

This Spring, as Turkey Season was winding down, Angus announced he was going to bag a deer this year. He picked my Marlin 336 in 30-30 and we went to work getting a load worked up. We picked a Winchester 150 Grain PowerPoint over H4895. He helps out on the reloading; Angus started pulling the handle on the old Rock Chucker press when he was 4. Now he works it like a pro.

It’s taken all but 10 of the 50 rounds we loaded to get him settled down and grouping well at 50 yards. We started in August, and fired a few rounds every chance we could. He has also been going with me on squirrel hunts throughout the Fall to get the young apex predator primed up.

I use sodium bicarb on everything. My kids all grew up wearing cheap used military camo from SportsmansGuide.com Those 3rd worlders are a tiny bunch of fellers– all my sons have outgrown the S , M, and L and are now in the XL stuff. A few trips through the washer in sodium bicarb gets the stink out of them. Underneath I use sweaters and sweat pants for warmth. Hunting camo is fine, but it’s expensive to keep the kids in it when they’re growing so much. I probably spent $50 on enough stuff to outfit my two sons for ten years using German, Austrian, and British war surplus. That includes camo ponchos for when it rains.

Sportsmansguide.com also has a good deal on thick poly-pro underwear– I bought the small union suit for Moose 5 years ago and now it’s Angus’ . It is also a good place to buy things like wool socks, and warm mittens. He has his own possibles bag– a cordura gas-mask bag in DPM camo (another sportsmansguide.com find), and even his own knife that he bought off a barber in Whitely City for $5 with his own money.

Don’t get me started on gloves and mittens– kids are notorious on losing gloves, and it only gets worse when they’re hunting. Buy lots when you find them cheap. Also find a muff and give it too them with a chemical heat pack thrown in. If you keep the little yute hands warm the little yutes tend to stay out longer. Hands, feet, and heads– concentrate on those, and you’ll whip the battle. Also remember to throw an extra heat back down the little yute’s front as you’re zipping up the little yute’s jacket. A heat pack in a breast pocket keeps a whole yute nice and toasty.

This Saturday, the KY Yute Opener is going to have summer-like temperatures– low in the mid fifties and a high in the 80’s. So we’ll both be dressing in long-sleeved T’s and no much else. However, if Angus doesn’t bag one, he’s got a whole pile of warm stuff to take him into the Modern Weapon season, and if necessary all the way to the Yute Bonus Weekend just before New Years.

There are at least 3 buddy stands that will give Angus good chances at getting a shot close-in. We’ll be hunting out of the 15 foot Hunters View Buddy Stands. All told, they have produced over a dozen deer in the last few seasons, and it’s been years since we went dry in October. Saturday morning is it. I weighed Angus just before we left– 150 lbs– that’ll give us at least a few years’ breathing room before we outstrip the weight rating on these stands. It’s already getting a little cramped with the two of us, and it was downright painful the last time I sat with Moose. However, they all take after their Dad. I’m a walking landform– imagine John Wayne gone to seed.

Last night, I printed off a set of deer targets with crosshairs on the kill zone. Angus has seen them many times, but I wanted to make sure he was visualizing the right spot. He’s had a full-size poster with the kill zone up on the wall since he was in a crib. We talked strategy, before he buried himself in a PS2 game. He says it’s brown-n-down for him– first thing through gets it. He already has his stand rotation worked out as well, with the Saturday morning opener going to be spent on the inside edge of a clover plot with a prime bedding area and some white oaks close by. If it goes to that, we’ll be in an oak flat for Saturday PM and a shelf with a major deer highway coming out of a creek bottom for Sunday AM.

Dang, where does he pick all this stuff up?