09/30/2026
SWEDEN HUNT
Landing in Vilhelmina, Sweden you can see the arrival and departure doors are just a few feet apart. The baggage and arrival room was about as big a 3 pickups. Heiko and crew had arrived about 10 minutes ahead of me and were waiting outside the door.
Another 2 hours and we were at the cabin (11pm)were our host and guide had dinner ready for us.
We are 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
The first morning Timo successfully harvesting a moose. The topography is boreal forest and tundra with intermitten lakes and low wet areas, not deep enough to be a slew but the water in spots can be over your boots.
Hunting for capercaillie and black grouse is very challenging and the bird numbers were down substantially from last year the the year before that we, Heiko and I, were there before.
A few days later Ingo successfully harvested a moose. It is legal to use dogs to track moose and the Norwegian Elkhound did its job. It track the moose and pushed it past Ingo and then stayed by the dead moose and barked until Ingo was able to leave the stand and get to it.
One morning we tried to harvest Black Grouse by hiding on one island and waiting until a grouse landed at the top of one of the trees on the other island to call. We had to be out there at least an hour before sunrise. These grouse are extremely weary, with great eyesight.
One day while hunting for Capercaillie and Black Grouse, Sebastian successfully shot a male and female Capercaillie. The males are huge and you see the size difference. They are also very weary and flush way ahead of the dogs most of the time.
Most of the resident hunters in Lapland Sweden shoot both of those species with small bore ri**es. After hunting them I can understand why!!!!
In fact, one of the photos I have posted had the head of a Black Grouse next to a r***e. I fully understand why!!!
The final day our host placed 5 hunters on 5 different islands. We were placed well before daylight and told how to position ourselves so we could get a shot when the male grouse can to sit in the highest trees on the island and do there morning calling. It worked and 4 of the 5 of use harvested our Black Grouse. Notice the curved tail feathers on the grouse. Google Black Grouse curved tail feathers and you will see how they look when fanned out.
Sometimes people will collect the "stones," grit from the stomach of Capercaillie and put it in a glass tube with the mount of the bird. the look and type of grit is specific to the area the bird was harvested from. We did that on Sebastian's capercaillie and I did it on my Black Grouse. The stones are the color of the berries the birds were eating until we rinsed them several times See less