Hunting - Wildfowling

WINTER GROUSE AND PTARMIGAN

Orra Hunting & Fishing Guides takes you hunting for willow grouse and ptarmigan in the winter mountains of Lapland. The hunting guide takes you by skis under the steeps where the ptarmigans creak, over the moors where the flocks of willow grouse feed and through the mountain birch woods where the willow grouse feed in the tree-tops.

Location: The Kvikkjokk Mountain area in Swedish Lapland. Nearest road 10 miles.

Game: Ptarmigan, willow grouse

Date: 1/2-15/3

Lodging: Mountain cabin. Bring only bedclothes.

The mountain cabin, with ptarmigan-mountains all around...

Food: Choose between full board and self-catering. With full board everyone helps with doing the dishes.

How to get there: First: 1) Flight to Luleå or Gällivare, thereafter rental car or bus; 2) Train to Murjek, thereafter bus to Kvikkjokk. Then: Snow mobile taxi from Kvikkjokk to the cabin; it takes roughly 45 minutes.

For who: Everyone. You only have to be able to go skiing 10 km per day, so you don’t have to be that fit. It’s good, though, if you know how to stand on a pair of skiis. If you want to, you can bring people who won’t be hunting, e.i. your friends, spouses. (Children under the age of 12 are perhaps too young, and if you bring children, they need to be of a tough mind, since its winter time and we’re outside all day.) 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.

Additional: Rent of rifle (22 LR): 100 SEK per day

Rent of skiing equipment: 100 SEK per day

Typical scene when hunting ptarmigan.

Description: Winter hunting for grouse and ptarmigan is something out of the ordinary! You often go high up in the mountains, above the tree line, where the ptarmigans live, thus giving yourself the magnificent views of the mountains around you and the valleys beneath you, everything covered in snow.

Winter hunting for grouse/ptarmigan is dependent on the weather. Strong wind is what you don’t want to have. Because then, firstly, your light and slow bullets will have no precision, and, secondly, the birds normally have a flight range outside the capacity of your caliber. Only small calibers are allowed, from 22 Hornet and down. The recommended caliber is .22LR with subsonic ammunition, but .22WM is also commonly used. The reason why .22LR is the prefered caliber is that the sound bang is low, especially with subsonic ammunition. This gives you many chances to fire. With a loud bang the whole flock, perhaps hundreds of birds, takes to flight, and you might have to persue them to the mountain side on the other side of the valley... Furthermore, there’s a range of ammunition available in .22LR, ranging from 300 to 500 m/s (1000 to 1650 fts/s) in muzzle velocity (sadly enough mostly designed for vermin). This gives you the option to use subsonics when you’re within that range and when you don’t want to scare off the birds, and high-velocity bullets when you can’t get near enough for the subsonics. The subsonics should be heavy and with hollow points, since ptarmigans are surprisingly tough. You don’t have the same option with 22WM, because then you always have the loud bang. When hunting with subsonics or standard bullets in .22LR you need a good judgement of distance and know the trajectories by heart, since the game is small and the trajectory so crooked. A bockbüchsflinte with rifle barrel 22WM is an interesting choice, since you sometimes would like to have a shotgun, but wouldn’t like to be without the rifle.

This flock of ptarmigans contained about 60 birds; for each shot some twenty birds flew off (we caught up with them later…)

You often approach the birds in the open, without camouflage clothing, since you seldom have any cover; the birds will see you whatever you do. For security reasons alone you shouldn’t use snow camouflage clothing, unless you know you’re alone on the mountain. Furthermore, if the birds senses that they are persued, that someone is stalking them, they get very nervous. Paradoxically, this means that the flight range decreases if you approach them in the open, without camouflage clothing. Their flight range vary very much. Ptarmigans have normally a very near flight range, and that’s why you want to find ptermigans instead of grouse. Grouse live in the birch forest below the tree line; they live off of sprouts and twigs on birch trees and bushes that stick up through the snow. Ptarmigans you’ll normally find above the tree line and where the snow doesn’t cover the ground. Roughly this is the situation either where the wind has swept the snow away, or in the precipices, where the inclination is to large for the snow to build.

Because you move high up in the mountains where the snow often is hard, sometimes so hard that you can walk on top of the snow, on your feet, hunting grouse or ptarmigan is less strainous than hunting for black game in winter time.

The late afternoon often gives good hunting for both ptarmigan and grouse; the grouse goes up in the trees and the ptarmigans becomes "stonesleepers"

Packing list:

Windproof hunting clothes (if not rented; worst conditions: -15°C and 15 m/s)

Long johns and undershirt (in synthetics or wool)

Extra undershirt

Woolen socks

Extra pairs of woolen socks

Skiing equipment (if not rented)

Warm sweater/quilted jacket/down jacket (if not rented; incl. in rent of hunting clothes)

Warm shoes

Clothes for use indoors

Shoes or slippers for use indoors

Toilet bag

Bedclothes (the cabin’s equipped with pillow and quilt)

Sporting rifle (if not rented)

Ammunition

Binoculars

Head lamp or torch for the evening in the cabin

A good book for the evening in the cabin (or other means of recreation, such as playcards)

Food (if self-catering is chosen)

Please note that the snow mobile taxi has a restricted luggage capacity.