I got back from a swap hunt in Sweden last night,so here are some first impressions about what it's like to hunt there:
- The cost of living is broadly similar, although some things are noticeably more expensive - food and alcohol in particular. Fuel is the same price and the roads are excellent - we clocked up 1000+ kilometres in a Hertz diesel Volvo V50 that cost £115 to hire for five days.
- The hunting is much more sociable than in the UK. We were part of four hunt parties during our trip - two of them were the local community's annual moose hunt, which was the only hunting outing that year for some of the participants. The morning and afternoon drives were separated by a communal lunch around an open fire, with crayfish soup and hot moose sausages on the menu. In some ways the atmosphere was more like a UK pheasant shoot, with stands being allocated like pegs.
- Hunting dogs, fitted with GPS collars, are used to find and move the game through the selected area - often several hundred hectares in size - toward the guns waiting upwind. Different breeds of dog are trained to hunt different species. For someone with little or no experience of hunting with dogs, it was fascinating to see the different breeds working, particularly the Laikas and the Vissels (I think that's the name?) tracking and holding a wild Boar.
- In the kind of thick woodland we were hunting, most shots were made at short range (less than 50m) on moving targets.This meant that the rifles used were set up differently,with short barrels and close-range scopes such as 1-6x24s or the modern Aimpoint red-dot scopes.There were few moderators in use, but when they were, they tended to be very light A-Tec ones that didn't hinder the swing of a driven game rifle. If you have no experience of driven game, get some practice in beforehand and re-zero your rifle to closer ranges than usual for the UK.
- If you are moving with the dogs, rather than sitting at a stand, make sure you are fit. The pace is relentless and the ground is tough - those forests may look flat from the air but 8 hours of climbing up and down vast granite boulders takes its toll on the knees.
- If you are lucky enough to shoot a moose, doing so somewhere vaguely accessible will endear you greatly to the local guys. Imagine hauling an animal four times the weight and size of a big Red stag out of an area of clear-fell three or four kilometres from the nearest track - it's no wonder they arrive with some hefty earth-moving kit on tracks to haul the buggers out!
- Listen carefully to the instructions about what to shoot, as they can be a bit convoluted, i.e. one Red stag, one Bull moose with antlers of more than 3-points per side, one moose calf but only when there's a moose cow with two calves etc. You also need to listen to the 2-way radio you'll be issued with, to make sure you know when each animal has been shot and is therefore no longer on the quarry list. It can be a sore temptation when you hear that another hunter has shot a 6-point moose and used up the quota, just as an 18-point animal strolls past your stand...
Sweden is a brilliant place to hunt - if you are interested in boar hunting over there, I've got some great contacts for you.
Adam.