There are four different species of wood fowl; capercailzie, black grouse, willow grouse and hazel hen. Only, the hazel hen should be handled with the utmost care, because of the risk of endangering all your work with the dog’s training. A dozen hazel hens, swarming around the dog, moving from tree to tree, only 50-100 metres at the time, constantly whistling, can easily make your dog do things it should not do. The bird lives in very dense woods, it is very small and it hardly ever allows you more than a split second to shoot; it is not worth the effort. The spaniel should be turned around to leave them be; there are, after all, better ways of dealing with that bird.
Even though we love spaniels, we do believe that the capercailzie is a bit difficult for them to handle. The bird can sometimes be mastered by a really experienced and swift dog, if the bird sits hard enough, but later in the season the capercailzie usually runs away from the danger, only to take to its wings when it is well away from you. I am not saying that you should not try, but you should also know that the capercailzie is not the easiest bird to come by.
Both the black grouse and the willow grouse seem designed especially for spaniel hunting. They sit harder; usually they do not run, at least not as quickly, and, above all, they are a lot easier for the dog to handle for a longer period of the season.
You might think that the willow grouse lives mainly on high altitudes, but they are quite common near the coast as well. When hunting for those two species, two or three out of four birds in your bag will be willow grouse.
Other game
Well, we have no rabbits, but hare we do have. Not the species most of you are accustomed to, but the mountain hare. The swift hare is not easy to shoot. First of all, you have to see it to get a chance to shoot and then you have to hit it as well – not always an easy task. Generally, it lives in thickets of willow, spruce and juniper; very often your dog is aware of it going, even though you are not. Normally it tries to sneak away as quiet as possible, without a noise, ears flat to the head and lowering to the ground among stones and roots.
Then, of course, there is also the woodcock, a real favourite. The Swedish population is rather big, about two million birds. That secretive, almost mythical bird is more common than many other birds in Sweden, but definitely not an easy one to hunt for. You need really good dogs, preferably spaniels and among those, the Cocker must be considered the better choice – as the name suggests. On a good afternoon you may have at least a dozen flushes within the hour.
Water fowl
We do have ducks, mostly teal, widgeon and mallard, but they are not as common up north as they are in the southern parts of the country. Of course we shoot them if given the chance, but we do not spend much time looking for them. Those we shoot are mostly those we happen to come by when reaching the odd tarn or brook we find in the woods. At the peak of the migrating season though, we sometimes spend an hour or two in the afternoons, looking for them at well known places where we are used to find them. Of course our spaniels are trained to flush ducks from their seats in sedge and reed stands, but also to retrieve them. Sometimes we shoot 4-5 ducks, mostly less, but rarely more.
