TLDR: if you’re hoping for victorious whooping as we roast a grouse the size of a turkey under a starry sky. Ya fresh out o' luck. As were we.
My welcome home
Mrs SBW: You went all that way and shot nothing haw-haw I’m on team Capoer-what’s-it. I’m glad.
Last year’s report needs a tad more to complete it. Having heard two versions of events I've pieced this, third, perhaps more factual third version together.
When I arrived back at the house Mrs SBW ran down the stairs to greet me shouting "You're alive!"
There is also a rumour that he offered her £50 for my reloading bench and all the 'junk' on it.
When I arrived back at the house Mrs SBW ran down the stairs to greet me shouting "You're alive!"
Apparently she'd convinced herself I'd died in the Sub Arctic and had rung the ACL [Ambulance Chasing Lawyer or as he would have it Deerstalking's Robin Hood] for moral support.
Mrs SBW
Mrs SBW
“he’s not answering his phone, he went to meet his internet friends in the sub-arctic, I don't even know their names, and now his phone's been dead for days. do you think he’s dead ?”
The ACL
The ACL
“He does stuff like that all the time, he did say I could have his black target rifle, it's scope, and his green binoculars if….."
Mrs SBW "Shut up!"
Mrs SBW "Shut up!"
There is also a rumour that he offered her £50 for my reloading bench and all the 'junk' on it.
Another landscape where Capercaillie have been. Possibly recently. Defiantly not now.
This year the chaps are very excited about the weather,
Dan "we've already had more snow than we had the whole of last year!"
Before last year I'd never heard people complain that it wasn't cold enough. Where I'm from when it gets to zero people lose their minds. It gets cold [-10c] in the Cairngorms where we stalk Reds, but not for long, sub-zero is a twenty year event in the south east.
Fred Bear's 10th commandment.
"Next year’s hunt begins the minute this season’s hunt ends."
This is both fantastic advice, and the way you go from; Coat, Boots, Rifle, Binoculars, Knife aestheticism to posting pictures called 'My Gear Room' on Instagram.
The northern exposure lifestyle means you need different clothes, in the highlands it's always about keeping dry from the outside, and warm. In the sub Arctic it becomes keeping dry from the inside and cool.
I'm in love with the whole idea of pristine north so, inevitably, I've started a new collection of white snow camo and, you know how it is, what isn't a prompt for another rifle?
I commissioned a special 'snow rifle' a 6XC which I've built entirely out of traded parts. It's the antidote to my much loved Money Pit. A recession-ista special, vigorous trading means I've not spent any actual money on it. Although as is so often the way with 'bargains' I still don't actually have it.
I've been buying reduced, remaindered, and secondhand snow camo where ever I can. I've not had the best time with the post, shipping stuff from the US has become a real pain and the European mainland not much better. Some stuff never arrived. June is a good month to buy cold weather gear.
Following advice from Luke of The Outdoor Boys, I've bought the largest pair of boots I've ever seen.
Baffin boots are one of the few things in this life that are exactly as awesome as people say they are. Go half size up. Absolutely perfect for standing on the ice for prolonged periods. Even at full whack I'd say Baffin boots are a serious bargain. I'll do an in-depth review later as they have a couple of clever design tweaks that really set them apart. They also fit neatly into the category of comedy footwear - my bag is 100l, they probably amount to 40l so I had to wear them on the plane. Where they nearly fit under the seat.
I set off for the pristine north.
It's two flights that don’t match up, so once again I’m camping in Stockholm airport for an age, In between: mocking strangers, giving trite advice [you're an adult act like it - go to stand up school until you've forgotten how to be nervous - you don't need a car buy a Zero Compromise Optic], and having pointless arguments on Facebook I do a little people watching.
Swedish men have a comfort, a utility even, with the backwards trucker cap that's always eluded the English. They start about two years old, and do it right into their late 60's. While we're on trucker caps. In southern Sweden that whole pastel pink-short arms-sportswear-Paris-Hilton look from 20 years ago is either back, or has never gone away. It's not improved with age. The lady's team rock it into their 60's too.
It's late by the time I'm in northern Sweden. Jon picks me up and we drive the tree-lined roads to his house. A few drinks and what passes for an early night.
Kids in Northern Sweden get up a lot earlier than mine ever did. I'm a curiosity to them. Jon's children are convinced I'm Scottish, the complexity of explaining that I'm not to the under ten's eludes me. They are delighted with this year's hoard of chocolates. While Jon plays the game that all adventures seem to begin with, finding-my-shit. We play play-dough dinosaurs and eat thinly sliced cheese.
One more synapes rattling coffee and we're off. With Dan collected, we start scrying and looking for omens: temperature, the texture of snow, the proximity of trees, recent weather, wind direction, a black cat seen three weeks ago.
For a while almost every tree is a roost for Black Grouse. Capercaillie chow down on Spruce, and Moose loiter by the road side. The stars have aligned! Last year's pessimism is a thing of the past.
This is THE year!
Dan: I've bought 'some' bullets
This year we're living in Jon's village house, it's all very civilised. Dan has passed his exam, been granted his hunting and firearm licences and been on a spending spree.
His longed for Mauser disappeared down a waiting list and he'd been offered a Steel Action. a fairly new straight pull company from Cologne. I'd only seen one before. So I was intrigued to punt a few down range and see what they shoot like.
If straight pulls are a continuum; with Heym the simplest at one end, then Blaser, then Merkel the most complex. Steel Action are between Heym and Blaser. It's a true straight pull, unlike Merkel no gearing, or second plane of movement like Blaser. Cycling the bolt is not as quiet as the Heym, not as noisy as Blaser. Not as many moving parts as Merkel, but with a rotating bolt head. Very nicely made. Like the others, it has the German de-cocking safety which is obviously better than the blocked firing pin designs.
I’m very impressed action is smooth and less annoying than the slide and crank of a blaser. The trigger is a joy. Going to have to mark the design down on the stock design, if that adjustable cheek piece was 25mm further back you could take the bolt out without removing it. Given the Swedish rule about bolt out when in the car that’s an oversight.
Every target has something to teach you. Clearly the rifle shoots groups, but also clearly, the groups are in different places. Unlikely to be the action screws, [a mistake I have made more than once], moderator seems good and tight, and the dispersal is too uniform for that. On cursory inspection the cap of the windage turret could be a bit more vertical. At some point we really should name and shame the gun shop that set Dan's rifle up for him. Apparently they even had a jig, but still were lazy enough to say 'close enough' and hand the rifle over. After dinner we set to with a plumb-bob and the shameful realisation that none of us thought to bring a torque wrench - long term readers will know that I of all people should know better.
Dan: ski ramp cheese is a serious crime here.
Jon: We'll let this one pass, but if my wife was here. [sharp intake of breath]
SBW: I didn’t know you’d gotten married?
Jon: Not yet. I bought a new rifle. She bought a ring and gave it to me to give to her. I had terrible back ache so I was begging her to say yes when I was kneeling down.
Jon: We'll let this one pass, but if my wife was here. [sharp intake of breath]
SBW: I didn’t know you’d gotten married?
Jon: Not yet. I bought a new rifle. She bought a ring and gave it to me to give to her. I had terrible back ache so I was begging her to say yes when I was kneeling down.
Sako S20 unloved on both sides of the North Sea.
a cool looking rifle, if you like the thumbhole stock laser-blaster rifles. Where they get off asking a premium over the cost of a Tikka I don't know. It's not significantly better, in fact it's not better at all. I've seen the carbon version of this one in a posh London gunshop for five and a half large. Stock to metal fit wasn't all that. Considering that I built my carbon stocked Tikka for not much more than a grand and thought I'd over spent....
a cool looking rifle, if you like the thumbhole stock laser-blaster rifles. Where they get off asking a premium over the cost of a Tikka I don't know. It's not significantly better, in fact it's not better at all. I've seen the carbon version of this one in a posh London gunshop for five and a half large. Stock to metal fit wasn't all that. Considering that I built my carbon stocked Tikka for not much more than a grand and thought I'd over spent....
SBW: [a little surprised he sold his 6.5 Creed Tikka] Hey I've seen these, but never shot one, how have you found it?
Jon: I hate everything about it. It rusts, the bullets bird nest, I hate it.
SBW: I know a man who has a gun shop in Scotland who really sneers at them.
Jon: The man in my gun shop refused to take it in part ex.
Jon: I hate everything about it. It rusts, the bullets bird nest, I hate it.
SBW: I know a man who has a gun shop in Scotland who really sneers at them.
Jon: The man in my gun shop refused to take it in part ex.
One and Done, 200m Jon declares his rifle sighted in.
I''ve managed to convince that sage of the prairie, the blogger known as The Mallard of Discontent to put WhatsApp on his dog n bone. We've taken to sending each other updates.
SBW: Hey man doing some Arctic Warfare Cosplay
MOD: Dude! Where are you? And are there Scandinavian babes there?
SBW: About 200km south of the arctic circle, trying and failing to shoot capercaillie. And no, Wifey says the MILF hunting season has closed.
Fred Bear's 5th commandment .
Take only the gear to the field that allows you to hunt longer, harder, smarter.
From Dan's shopping spree, the Vorn rifle scabbard. The pack has side entry so the rifle can be carried butt down/barrel up. I've met a few people who have them over the years. There’s a 'sandwiches' size which we can discount, as a complete waste of time, this size has room for your jacket which feels minimum bid to me. The older I get the more I want zero weight on my shoulders, which Vorn haven't prioritised, but if its only a lightweight stalking rifle and a jacket I'd tolerate it. To me the butt-down orientation Vorn choose has to be loads better, I had a barrel-down rig at Midnight Sun Rifle Challenge and with most of the mass between your shoulders, and the chance of your silencer banging into things, it wasn't great.
The Vorn USP is this cunning quick release system which people tell me is 100% reliable. Of the scabbard systems it's certainly the most innovative. On my yet-to-arrive Ski-Rifle I'm experimenting with a biathlon sling I ordered from TAD. Jury's out.
“Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go." Anthony Bourdain
Where ever you go the food is a track left by environment, in the arid lands of Spain there's no shortage of stale bread. So they have lots of recipes with stale bread. In Jamaica there's plenty of slow burning Hardwoods, so like Ireland where Peat was the fuel, low & slow stews are the tradition. Sweden has Tjälknöl a lump of frozen moose sliced and cooked without thawing then brined. A more recent Swedish tradition is Brown Sauce, the key ingredient is Mrs Cheng's Mushroom Soy Sauce which is literally the most delicious thing you can shake out of a bottle.
Reduced cream, fried onions, mushrooms, mushroom soy and if you have it, a little whiskey.
Seriously you could eat cardboard with this stuff.
Jon refuses my attempts to cook dinner "My wife went to culinary school, no one could ever be good enough to cook in her kitchen, I'm not allowed." He casually knocks up a fantastic dinner, moose in mushroom sauce, with some of the smoothest mash potatoes.
Right, enough target shooting, we're getting up early a skiing until we find some birds!! Skhol!!
My XC skiing is going far, far better than expected. Jon is doing the hard bit cutting a trail, Dan and I are taking it in turns to shuffle along in his wake. I'm finally having that glorious moment where I've stopped 'skiing' and I'm just, "skiing".
Fred Bear's 9th commandment .
Hunt where the deer actually are, not where you’d imagine them to be.
We've stopped to glass the trees that line a frozen swamp. Not a sausage, lots of suspicious blobs, dark patches in the trees, but nothing with a pulse.
Dan; How many brown dots have you seen?
SBW: A few
Dan: I'm at 300.
Dan: and One
The portal to hell
Fred Bear's 1st commandment.
Don’t step on anything you can step over.
We set off across the swamp. Passing a little island there's a gully. Jon demonstrates how to turn sideways and go down and up the other side. I follow.
Suddenly I'm having that Wiley Coyote moment where there isn't any ground beneath my skis, More by luck than judgement I fall on to my side. I'm over my head in the deep soft stuff with my skis bird's nesting down a hole.
I cant get up. I can't move my feet to get a better purchase, or get my feet out of the gully. My crossed ski's are under an overhang of ice. Which very probably means I'm lying on the other overhang of ice.
We have an expression in the south of England "Fuck My Luck".
Obviously I'm at the edge on the known-world here, I don't know how to get out of this one, I can hear but not see Dan coming to my aid from behind. The look that Jon gives Dan clearly says 'don't come any closer the whole thing will collapse'.
I don't know if things are about to get worse before they get better.
If, problems occur, and they will, so its when problems occur. The most important thing is not to freak out, a close second is to come up with something to brighten the mood, to put both victim and rescuer at their ease. I've been both and it always helps. The best I can do, when Jon, using his concerned voice, asking if I'm alright, is to channel my father, a man only slightly less droll than Robert Smith of The Cure
SBW: It wouldn't have been my first choice, very cold water has entered my shoe.
Jon affects a rescue by bridging the collapsed snow bridge with his skis, kneeling on them, un-clipping me from mine. While I'm rolling about in the meter deep snow like a divorced walrus trying to get up, and praying to norse gods the ground doesn't give way. He tries to rescue my skis which are now at the bottom of the creek full of icy water. The water is too deep to reach to the bottom so he recovers my skis using ski poles, from what looks to be about a meter of icy water. Whole thing could easily have been a lot worse.
Jon affects a rescue by bridging the collapsed snow bridge with his skis, kneeling on them, un-clipping me from mine. While I'm rolling about in the meter deep snow like a divorced walrus trying to get up, and praying to norse gods the ground doesn't give way. He tries to rescue my skis which are now at the bottom of the creek full of icy water. The water is too deep to reach to the bottom so he recovers my skis using ski poles, from what looks to be about a meter of icy water. Whole thing could easily have been a lot worse.
Jon is Mr Bring 'Em Back Alive.
Back on our skis with one boot full of warming water we make a good pace across the swamp. The frozen north is obviously not like the equator where the sun switches off like a light, its more gradual but the reflected light from the snow makes the end of the day seem longer than it is. Its starting to darken when Jon, to my and Dan's relief suggests that we stop at a shelter and ski's off into the gloaming to pick the snowmobile up.
We ski over to a really solid little hut with a barbecue pit and take a breather. The hut is equipped with an axe and some matches to save your life if you did have to spend an unexpected night in it.
In England the axe would have either, been banned on health and Safety grounds, or stolen, and Herberts would have used the matches to burn the cabin to the ground.
I still have a lot to learn. This is us trying to walk back to the snowmobile without our skis. Doh!
We snowmobile back to the house. Only falling off twice.
Hawaiian Banana Pizza. Yes I did say that, Banana Pizza. In a word 'Odd'. Or perhaps "Troubling"? Apparently it's considered a delicacy and is very popular.
Donner Kebab pizza, so sleazy, and yet suddenly it seems so innocent I suppose it's just a flat bread served unfolded?
The clash of the mash
Despite his being a couple of decades younger than me, there are certain similarities between Jon and myself. For instance we both believe that mashed potato should be creamy and that we are pretty good at making it that way.
Despite his being a couple of decades younger than me, there are certain similarities between Jon and myself. For instance we both believe that mashed potato should be creamy and that we are pretty good at making it that way.
We also both have women in our lives who are horrified that potatoes should be served that way and are vociferous in their condemnation.
We've not been in the house long before Mrs Jon breezes in. We're just hanging out, talking about cheese when Jon casually mentions how well the previous nights meal had been received. Mrs Jon gives him a look which makes it clear he should have been supervised
You can see he's lost this one, behind his eyes part of his soul is waving a white flag, but his brain hasn't got the message. So he, probably foolishly, produces a Tupperware of his frankly delicious mash from the night before. With the glee of a forensic pathologist unmasking a serial killer, she prods dismissively at his mash, 'you’ve made wallpaper paste' She mimes spreading paste on the wall.
Jon: But But I ....
Mrs Jon: NO! It must be fluffy
She produces her own tub of mash from the fridge......
Rounds fired - gotta be a couple of hundred. Falls from skis zero! Falls from snow mobile 3 (as passenger). Capercaillie none. Amazing stews 1, Weird pizzas 2. Excellent mashed potato 2.
On the way home we run into Jon's FIL "Don't worry I got 5 in the 35 years I hunted them for, you've got plenty of time".
Maybe I should have quipped that I've been through them at a similar rate?
Next up adventures in 6XC
Your pal
SBW
