Bird-hunting - Wildfowl

BLACK GAME

Orra Hunting & Fishing Guides takes you to its low-land hunting lodge in Lapland for wildfowling black game. In the autumn there are a number of methods available, depending on the behavoiur of the birds and your prefered method: hunting with tree-barking bird dog, flushing the birds using shot gun, taking stand, using calling pipe. In the winter we go skiing, finding the capercaillies and black cocks feeding in the tree tops. In all cases, the hunt starts outside the cabin door.

Location: Southeast Swedish Lapland; between Fredrika and Lycksele.

Game: Wildfowl: Capercaillie, black grouse, grouse, hazel-hen From 16/11 not hazel-hen, capercaillie hen or grey hen.

Methods:

Black game hunting with tree-barking bird dog

Flushing the birds using shot gun.

Courting place hunting (black grouse)

Capercaillie shooting from hiding-place

Calling (hazel-hen)

Top-hunting (Capercaillie and black cock)

Date: 1/10-31/1

Other activities (in October): If one wants to take a brake in the hunting, there are a number of good lakes and streams for pike, arctic char, brown trout and grayling, some within walking distance from the lodge.

October 2005

Lodge: Cabin. Bring only bedclothes. Please observe: Water is taken from a well outside; outside is also the toilet; otherwise normal standard. Wood-heated sauna.

The hotel.

Food: Choose between full board and self-catering. With full board everyone helps with doing the dishes. (Not with upgraded lodging.)

How to get there: First: 1) Flight to Umeå or Lycksele, thereafter rental car, bus, or be picked up by Orra; 2) Train to Vännäs/Umeå, thereafter bus to Fredrika or Lycksele, or be picked up by Orra.

For who: Everyone. Fitness requirements: 1. October: a) Using bird dog or flushing the birds: able walkers; b) shooting from stands: no fitness requirements; 2. November-January: You need to be more fit. Skiing in mid-winter is fairly tough work, about the same as climbing stairways, so a good measure for you is if you can climb stairs (for a couple of hours) without difficulties.

If you want to, you can bring people who won’t be hunting, e.i. your children, friends, spouses. (From November, children under the age of 15 are perhaps too young.) And remember: You don’t have to be a hunter already – you can be a total beginner! This is possible since the guide is with you all the time when hunting. If you’re renting a rifle from Orra, the only ground rule is that you’re of 16 years of age or more.

Price: Please request quotation.

Rent of rifle: 100SEK per day.

Rent of skiing equipment: 100 SEK per day

Description: Vast swamps, afforestations, clearings, older and younger forest, spruce, birch and pine, lakes, small rivers, creeks, hills. This makes up the landscape of southeast Lapland. And this makes good habitat for black game, which you find in strong populations here, both capercaillie and black grouse. Especially the large swamps are ideal for black game hunting in winter time. Because when the winter has come and the snow has fallen, the birds, both capercaillie and black grouse, find their food in the top of the trees (hence the swedish name for this type of hunting, lit. ‘top hunting’). And since you go skiing, trying to see them feeding in the tree-tops, you need to detect them from a far distance, well outside the flight limit of the birds. This you do best in a landscape with vast swamps. When you’ve detected the game, you can find a way to get into shooting range. You close in on the game with utmost care, taking cover in the forest, using camouflage clothing. Before the snow has fallen, hunting is done in the same way as when hunting capercaillie. But then there’s a season in between, when the birds both might be feeding on the ground and in the tree-tops, since the snow isn’t that deep yet. Then you have good use of the hunting dog, the tree-barker. Even when the snow is deep, the birds might be feeding on bushes which are sticking up from underneath the snow. This is also a good time to have a tree-barker.

Furthermore, since roads, also cleared in winter time, are affluent in the area, you don’t have to go by snow mobile for hours on end every day to get to the hunting grounds. And without the need for the snow mobile you can use the most suitable caliber (only small caliber rifles are allowed when going by snow mobile). Either you open the front door of the cabin or the car door – and then you’re hunting. And you'd better look through the windows before you open the cabin door, because flocks of black cocks might be feeding in the trees in the garden...

In the autumn there is also a period when the capercaillies and black grouse are courting in the same way as in the spring. Standing on the porch one can sometimes hear three-four different courtings at the same time. The hunting guide will show you where they are. When hunting courting black grouse you take hiding at the courting place and wait for the birds to appear. And then, when the birds have gathered and started courting around you...

Also in autumn capercaillie can be hunted from a hiding-place. At dawn and dusk (and anytime in the day in certain weather) the birds appear walking on the gravelled roads to eat gravel, and they appear at the same places everytime. So the hunter is placed in hiding close to such game trail, waiting for them to appear.

January 2006

Choice of gun is dependent on the time of year and the method of your choice. When flushing the birds shot guns are used. Using bird dog you’d like to have the bockbüchsflinte, the combinated 12 gage shotgun/rifle barrelled gun. But the shooting distance increases the later the season gets. In the real winter hunt, the “top hunt”, you want a really flat trajectory, because the shooting distance is normally about 150 meters. The smallest usable caliber is 22 Hornet. The largest caliber in normal use are .308 Win. Ideal are 6PPC or .243 Win. The larger calibers are used with full metal jackets. Choice of caliber is however not the most important thing. Firstly, the most important thing is to have a scope very well adjusted, adjusted and tried!, at a shooting distance of at least 150 meters. The scope needs to be checked frequently, since a bump or pressure, e.g. in transportation of the rifle, might give a deviation of half a meter at 200 meters. The magnification of the scope needs to be minimum 9´, preferably 16´. Secondly you need either have a good judgement of distance or a range-finder. A good judgement od distance is something you learn by training. When the hunting season approaches, you ought to train yourself. This you do this way: Pick out an object. Make a judgement of the distance to it. Walk up to the object, counting the steps. Pick out objects with varying distances, in varying terrain, in open terrain, in dense forest and soforth. It’s not an easy thing to say weather a certain distance is 200 or 250 meters. And there’s no sporting caliber that gives you this much latitude. Thirdly you need to know by heart the trajectory of the bullet you’re using when it is used in the rifle you’re using.

Does this sound difficult? It might be — as well as it might not. Because you’re dependent on the behaviour of the birds. Capercaillies as well as black grouse, ptermigan and grouse have a very varying flight range, from 3 meters for ptermigan sometimes to 300 meters for black grouse sometimes. No one knows exactly what this variation is due to, but weather conditions seems to be the most important factor. However, often during the top hunt the flight range for black game is about 80-100 meters. So if one’s lucky, top hunting is easy.