Capercaillie The Revenge Toppjakt 26

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. 

But that all came later. First. Some housekeeping. 

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!" 

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 

“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 

“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!"

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.

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....

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. 

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 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.  

It's time to pack up and head for home. But first one more mythical Swedish beast must be encountered 
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. 

Banana on toast, with cheese, ham and a touch of curry sauce - tastes exactly as you're imagining 

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. 

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

Capercaillie Toppjakt In Sami Land [Northern Sweden] '25

The kitchen, London. southern England 

The Witch [AKA Mrs SBW]: I've known her for 35 years. She’s my oldest friend, but I’m not sure if I trust her. Why does the diary say you're away third week in January?

SBW: I’m going hunting in the boreal forrest with some dude I met on Facebook.

A frozen lake. Sami land, very very northern Sweden

The fizzing crack of a moderated 6.5 Creedmoor echos in the distance  

There are a few conventions in travel storytelling, and in particular travel TV. The women are intrepid, they will be challenged, but having bonded with a local woman over some validation ritual, will rise to the challenge, and by the end the half hour she will be joyful at the edge of her comfort zone. 

If the man is under 50 he's a sort of guide, strangely sage, often quite earnest, he maybe a former marine, but is the least blokeish former squaddie available. He'll have packed his anglophone liberal values along with his Swiss Army knife. Asking a goat herder about the gender pay gap in her village. If he's over 60 he's a reluctant to very reluctant. His most profound complement is to complain that such and such cannot be purchased at home. There will be some griping, mainly about missing the comfort of his own bed. Sometimes to mix things up it's a father and son. Bit of both.  Anthony Bourdain made a fortune and some excellent TV by the simple expedient of having the camera follow him as he met the people for the first time, being curious, and not moaning.  

The trip really begins about 16 years ago I spent the afternoon with James Marchington, and Charlie Jacoby from the Fieldsports Channel. Their friend Ian Spicer had invited us to some range time at the West London Shooting School. This was to be the start of my long fascination with the 6.5mm bullet.  Ian had a 6.5 swede and mentioned in passing that the Scandinavians shoot capercaillie from treetops with 6.5 solids.  Big day for me, formative even, I’d never heard of capercaillie either. I've shot a couple of thousand 6.5's since then, but capercaillie have eluded me. 

The first flight is completely full, and at Swedish customs it turns out the missus isn't the only person perturbed by my laissez faire travel arrangements. 

Customs guy: Why are you visiting Sweden?

SBW: I'm going for a long walk in the snow [ turns out to be slightly prophetic ]

Customs guy: [slightly incredulous] it can be very cold

SBW: I have a very big coat

Customs guy: they say it can be dangerous to get too hot

SBW: I'm more worried about the skiing to be fair

Customs guy:  On your own? It really can be quite dangerous 

SBW: I'm going with a friend from facebook

Customs guy:  Does he have a name?

SBW: Jon

Customs guy: a second name?

I show him my phone 

Customs guy: It's pronounced Yew-n.

SBW:Ah, glad you mentioned that

Customs guy: Where does he live?

SBW: No idea where he lives, never even spoken to him on the phone, and to be fair I'm not sure how to pronounce the name of the airport I'm meeting him at either.

Customs guy: Ah

It's probably someone else's paperwork if I'm eaten by cannibals, and his if he deports me, so he wishes me luck and stamps my passport. 

Our little chat means the next flight and my luggage have left without me.

Airport guy: "Happens all the time, we'll have you on another flight in an hour or so". I get the 'or so' version which is four hours. I message Jon who takes the whole thing in his stride  

Jon: There's a gun shop, and I'll buy my wife a present

Of all the unexpected things that happened perhaps the most remarkable is the food in Stockholm airport is fantastic. I know you don't believe me. Why should you. Someone who gave a shit about their job cooked this from scratch. In England even the salad would have been shaken from a packet by a particularly spotty and ambivalent teenager. 

The next plane is smaller, the airport smaller still, the daylight shorter. 

And so it begins. I’ve only ever been to the top of Europe once and it was mid summer, I've also only skied. once, on a dry ski slope, just over 40 years ago. Surprisingly it's not that cold, maybe one or two degrees cooler than London. 

In Alaska there’s a fella called Wiggy who makes the ultimate puffa jacket. I was having a productive period at work so I'd ordered one the day before Jon messaged me. Seemed fated. 

Jon and I had met on Facebook in a conversation about 6.5mm choices, he mentioned hunting capercaillie, I'd said it was a long held dream to hunt them he'd said 'come along I go every year.' I'd not thought much of it, one day out of the blue he's back in touch "Are you coming?" Seeing as I'd just ordered the coat, I said yes. Seemed fated.

I consulted Bird House as he's done lots of cold weather camping, and I posted a thread on the Stalking Directory. One response seemed wise 'I'd spent all kinds of money on high tech clothes I was freezing my tits off, until I copied the locals and bought a big wool sweater, after that I was fine". I shared this insight. Bird House gave me the look that says "how am I having to explain this to you?'. 

There's a company that advertise on Facebook that say they still sell the pullovers they supplied to Shackleton for his adventures in the antarctic. Bird House has tracked down the weavers that actually make them and have their own website.  Loads cheaper and they were having a new year half price sale. I'm now the proud owner of the biggest, heaviest, itchiest Woolly Pully I've ever seen. I look the part. I could belt out a sea shanty at any moment 

According to the historic weather data we should expect negative 13C during the day and negative 26C at night. I've never been anywhere colder than neg ten so I started to feel some trepidation. 

All the 'Four Season' sleeping bags I could find in the UK were clearly not intended for Sami seasons, minus 4 isn't even a Scottish winter. The Shipping fees and import taxes on my coat from Wiggy's had driven me to penury so I wasn't in the mood to order from him again. Bird House was all about chemical heaters, Jon took the view that expensive sleeping bags were over rated and two cheap bags would be better.  My inner Yorkshireman rejoiced. I've recently become more industrious with clay busting so I've been spending more time in the north with Super Plumber and The Northern Monkey. In yet another of the tedious displays of incompetence regular readers will be all too familiar with, I left the Wooly Pully behind. Attempts at shipping proved unsuccessful. So it didn't join me on the journey.  

In the 18th century before the discovery of the country's mineral wealth, lead to the invention of dynamite, which lead to the armaments industry, Sweden had sunk back from its days of empire. and millions of  Swedes emigrated to the USofA . Many of the things that to me are typically American are of Swedish origin. Lots of people, by people I mean chicks, look like they've stepped out of a Ralf Lauren commercial. The red wooden farm houses, and a preference for sweet foods. 

Of all the many wonderful things Swedish culture has brought to the world, the most annoying and perhaps most baffling has to be Ikea. You never meet anyone over the age of ten who likes it, but we all go there.

I met a Japanese woman who worked for Ikea in Japan. Given the Japanese people's famous preference for a quiet, ordered, sort of calm, I had to ask. 

"How do people cope with the infuriating madness that is a trip to the seventh circle of hell?" 

"Foreign company, all part of the fun" 

At the house Mrs Jon is serving moose meatballs with a crazy delicious 'brown sauce' I'm not sure if I said the right thing when I asked 'this is what the Ikea dinner is supposed to taste like'  She pulls a face 

SBW: Is Ikea not popular here? My children were raised on those horrible meatballs, they loved them?" 

Mrs Jon: " I hate that place, but I have a whole house full of their stuff" 

At this point the evening descends into a kind of gameshow: 

She produces a coffee mug. 

SBW: mum's house

She produces a bowl

SBW: we have those

She produces a glass

SBW: ex wife has those, actually we have some too. 

You know how to make venison meatballs, but while we're passing here's the simple wonder that is 'Brown Sauce". 

Reduce cream until it's thickened, add some browned or dried onions, add mushroom soy sauce, and then if you're so inclined  a little whisky. You'll never endure the tyranny of that muck Ikea sell in a sachet ever again. It's crazy delicious.  It would even go well with cardboard. 

SBW: These are unobtainium in London. I'm under strict instructions, f I go home without one I'll never hear the end of it

Mrs Jon [incredulous] : But what do you slice cheese with ?

SBW: A knife

Mrs Jon [slightly more incredulous, and actually horrified] But the slices will be thick?

In the morning I gift their kids enough Tunnocks and assorted candy to open a sweet shop, and we hit the road. We leave to the sound of "No Mummy this is breakfast" which needs no translation. 

After a short dive we collect Dan from his doorstep he greets me with "It may take some time to get warm in my clothes, mocking him in English" It took him no time at all.

Hunting friends always seem to come in pairs; one reckless, a speed demon,  the other a chill fellow, happy to tootle along more concerned with not digging the car out of a snowdrift than the time of arrival . 

The sport of unending criticism of the other's driving is the perfect middle ground everyone can enjoy. Its international. The Northern Monkey has it that gearboxes surrender when they hear me coming, I have it that were he to re-sit his driving test he would fail. My friends in the north are exactly the same. 

Is it called a smorgasbord when there's only one dish ?  Pretty easy to spot where the capercaillie have been. Past tense. 

The capercaillie is an unlikely animal. About the size of a turkey they're omnivores in the warmer months, but when the cold comes and the ground freezes, they switch to only eating the toppist tops of pine trees. 

Their shit suggests they don't really have the digestive tract for extracting nutrients from pine needles. 

Not content with nearly starving to death their sleeping habits border on the suicidal too. They crash land in a snow drift, and hope to wake up in the morning. Sometimes the weather changes, more snow falls, then freezes, and they are trapped or savaged to death by predators. It's a wonder there are any left. 

They also come with a perfectly placed white dot for rifle shooters to aim at. To make them a bit more sporting they have incredible eyesight, so 250-300m shots are the expectation.   

Where I stalk in the hedgerows of southern England shots are a lot closer,  but even in the highlands where shots are longer, there's usually a farmhouse or a road to be taken into account . The backstop is what defines a take-able shot. In the boreal forest the backstop is tens of thousands of hectares of hopefully empty forrest. Slightly unnerving. 

The trick is to have a flat shooting round, as chances are going to be at 250 - 300m, but and its a big ask, a bullet that's also not going too fast, or expanding, so it doesn't detonate the delicious bird. You're looking for a neat pencil hole, in though the white dot, though the spine and  out the other side. The Super 22's [22-250, 22 Creedmoor, etc] are probably a bit too destructive, 6 and 6.5mm are perfect. Lapua Sxxxxx are popular, and Barnes banded solids sound amazing if you can get any.  Factory ammo is so expensive that Sweden is possibly the only place where you could actually save money by reloading.

[yes I know Lee loaders were made in 6.5 swede, I'm joking, sort of. I feel very sorry for anyone who is buying their Co-Ax now] 

There's a giant network of unlocked huts, both private and public, you're never further than 6km from one. Mostly the last occupant has left you some tinned food,  firewood and matches. Sweden is seemingly run on a slightly different version of the 'for us by us' principle.  Where the 'us' is a much larger group. The extreme weather means there's a general assumption that some things are too important to be left to rugged individualism, of which they have plenty, so there's a sense of community and a government sponsored program of hut maintenance, rubbish clearance and wood gathering for huts both private and public. You can contribute if you want. Jon's taking the very reasonable view that his dad had done the hard yards building it in the first place and that as there were clearly others using it in his absence he'd paid up front. 

Even a long way out into the forrest there are well marked snowmobile trails, which are graded during the snow free months. They are better kept than some of the roads in London. So you can drive really fucking fast.  The boys tell me that the grading program is a kind of school leavers job everyone has had, it's quite well paid but extremely boring. 

Ugnspannkaka the cube-ular pancake of Sweden. While cheese maybe be sliced thin pancakes are served thick. we really don't have anything like this. All the ingredients of yorkshire pudding, but cooked to achieve totally the opposite effect. Where Yorkshires must rise, [minimum 75mm - as defined by the royal society for chemistry] these bad boys are totally solid. Baked and cut into cubes, then fried to make them crispy. It's Sweden so eaten with Lingonberry jam. Bloody good. 

Some things are universal to shooters everywhere.

Jon "I hate my Harris bipod." 

SBW "I hate mine too." 

In unison "the one I want is so expensive "

We confirm zero and take a couple of pops at 300m. Tikka man, what can you say? They are just excellent rifles; sure they lack the posh timber and style of the Shultz & Larsen, but two factory rounds a hair apart at 300m, you cant complain. I would have banged away to make a comforting little group but at this price per bang it seemed un-guestly. 

During the travel show there comes a time when the protagonist must face his fears, like when Chief Brody gets on to the boat....

The sum of all my fears, in plank form. 

I've never in all my life been anywhere where the constant complaint was 'Its not cold enough' they actually apologised about it. Seemed great to me, until we got moving, then I understood. The snow had melted a bit, a new crust had fallen, which had frozen insulating the melted snow and stopping it from re-freezing. On the snow machine this meant ruts, on skis it meant much much more inertia. On the lake it meant 20-50mm of icy water. I lived in constant fear of falling over and getting an icy soaking. 

Fortified by a plate of stodge, and some vigorous coffee it's time to face my fear, strap myself to two planks and waddle forth. 

Jon is wearing his 'I'll just be patient and see how this plays out' face. 

Dan is going for 'You have no idea what you've let yourself in for'. 

SBW 'I'm too fat to die, the dog will miss me"

Getting the first ski on isn't that bad, click in the toe and stamp down on the catch. Which begs the question. How to press the little catch to attach the second ski to the binding when you already have a two meter plank attached to your foot? Even lying in the snow like a divorced walrus its not easy. 

And we're off! As long as I don't have to go downhill it's not as bad as I was lead to believe. A sort of tai-chi shuffle, keeping your centre of balance a little further back and letting the rigidity of the boots choose when your stride completes. Boots didn't leak which was a blessing as we traversed the frozen lake. Managed not to fall onto the sheen of icy water. We came upon a tree where the capercaillie had been feasting fairly recently, so recently some of the turds weren't even frozen. We glassed, and glassed, no birds. 

The odd thing is the way sound is totally different to hunting in the forestry blocks of Scotland. It's all the other way around. As silent, but sounds when you do hear them appear much louder. On the far side of the lake we hear two birds spook, and then we see them. Flying away.

As we're completing the lap there's that feeling of prey, the tree tops are empty and without a thermal its looking for a brown thing silhouetted against a green-ish-brown-ish thing, in high contrast with lots of white. Again, but much nearer, birds spook and there's nothing we could have done.

I'm delighted I've made it all the way back to the cabin, I didn't have to radio Dan to come and get me on the snow machine. I'm pouring drinks and laughing.

Jon: I was quite worried but you were much better than I was expecting

SBW: you say that to all the girls

Jon: I just say what I think, then my wife apologises, really there are Swedish people who are worse than you. Take some lessons. 

SBW: I fell over like seven times

Jon: Three. 

Tires suitably inflated I decide to quit while I'm ahead. 

Jon: This little stove really warms up this cabin.

Dan: If only your wife said the same thing. 

Under a starry sky we drink Rum and listen to Americana, which I'm resoundingly mocked for liking back home. 

Dan: I like music where the song tells a story

SBW: me too

Always wanted to ice fish, I even have an ice fishing joke ready and waiting.

 

"You bought your wife an ice fishing tent for her birthday? I didn't know she ice fished!"

'How could she? She didn't have a tent' 

Jon skis off into what passes for the morning light. Dan and I get to boring holes, first to drain the surface of the lake, then to fish through. Tiny worms, hooked onto lures with LEDs, tiny rods, and fish after fish. There are really small ones called 'thousand brothers' that go back and Arctic Char after Arctic Char come out and stay out.

In the distance the report of a 6.5 Creedmoor.

Dan: He missed

SBW: How do you know?

Dan: Phone would be ringing.  

Dan: I'm worried we've given you a totally unrealistic expectation of ice fishing, we've caught 28 fish that we kept. 

SBW: how many do you usually catch?

Jon: Four would be pretty good. 

Just like a divorced walrus after the tide has gone out. 

 

There's one more species on the list. Beaver. How do you learn to hunt beaver? Youtube. We watch a couple of videos and after dropping Dan off at another lake we go a Beaver huntin'. The signs are easy enough to spot, we find their lodge but in retrospect are probably much too close to it. No Beaver were sighted. 

Still, some worthwhile scouting, there's a big fallen tree that will make an excellent hide overlooking the beaver pond but far enough away not to spook them. 

It gets dark rapidly and we go for a tour of the snow mobile trails before searching a few spots for Dan.

Who is sitting happy as Larry in the middle of a frozen lake, with his one Trout. One massive trout.

Jon: why do you spend so much time fishing ?

Dan; because you're hunting and I need to eat

By the looks of things he's not the first one to have caught it. That must have been some Pike!

There's one last tradition that must be experienced / endured Surströmming sour herring. this is some grievous shit, it actually smells even worse than it tastes. its not the eating, its not the swallowing. It's the burping that gets you. They even have a story about it being banned from some airlines, due to a pressure burst that contaminated everyone onboard's luggage. One Christmas a shortage had been announced on the nightly news, instead of breathing a sign of relief, Sweden flew into panic buying mode, even people who had refused to eat it before were caught up in the madness, it was reportedly changing hands for E500 a tin.

Jon: You can go home and give your wife the tongue!

As we leave for the airport and join the main road, with the rifle packed away, at less than 100m, from a treetop, a reasonably sized, shootable, capercaillie shouts ‘So long suckers’.

Next up the hedgerows of southern England 

more soon

your pal 

SBW