In our part of the country it is quite easy to get somewhere to hunt. There are vast areas open for anyone, plenty of them too. You do not have to be a landowner; in fact, you do not even have to be well off. People we meet come from all walks of life, mostly ordinary people actually. It is a matter of tradition, dating back to the 17th century when settlers started coming from all over the country to build themselves a better life in what was then a perfect wilderness. In many ways it is still a wilderness with room for everyone, hunters and anglers alike. Any change in those conditions would probably result in a revolution!
We have 16000 acres to our disposal for the cost of £20 – a year. For that sum we can shoot everything that the license allows – even bear, but not moose. Not that we would want to, we do not like to shoot anything we cannot carry home ourselves and without help. We have been passionate bird hunters for many years; in fact, I grew up with it and the great discovery of the spaniel as a hunting dog has in many ways enhanced that passion.
As already stated, it is hard work to hunt the woods and mires of the north, both for the dog and the hunter. Game is scarce and therefore we need to know how to get to them. In our case that means that we concentrate on hunting mires and old clearings where young trees are growing back; the combination of those two can sometimes hold most of the populations in the early autumn. The season starts on August 25 in late summer, therefore the game wants wet patches as well, and a brook cutting through the landscape is therefore also a good thing, something to make the game stay in those areas. On really hot days that may not be enough, we have to look for the birds where there are lakes since the birds wants to wade the water lines to cool off. On days like that, the birds very often fall in the water and have to be retrieved by a dog that can do with a cooling and refreshing swim too! In fact, there are days when we are forced to hunt among lakes in order to spare the dogs. The energetic spaniel is a hard worker and has no wish to spare himself, but if the dog can go into the water and have a drink as often as he wants, he can work all day instead of just an hour or two. That may very well be the biggest difference between hunting in the north compared to that in the south; we really do need hard working dogs, because of the vast areas we have to cover, in order to find game.
There are three very important conditions to make the birds stay in a certain area. One of them we have already discussed; the one about water, but then there are two more.
There have to be sufficient cover for them to hide in. They need thickets of primarily willow, sallow and juniper to feel secure, but also taller trees as spruce and fur trees, but above all, birch. Not too tall though, the game we are looking for, black grouse and willow grouse, thrive in very young woods and prefer those before the older ones. Willow and sallow provide shelter in the same way as juniper; the juniper never grows into trees, but they can on the other hand grow into wide thickets, covering areas that can hide birds in a way that really puts the dog to the test. The taller trees provide shelter from above and also shelter when flushed, something to dodge behind in order to avoid the attack from a hawk, or to avoid the shot of a gun. Besides all that, taller trees provide them with shadow on a hot day and shelter on a rainy day.
This time of the year, they feed mainly on berries; such as bilberries, red whortleberries and bog-berries. If they are not there, the birds will not be there either. Of course they also eat leaves of bilberry, and different seeds, but they need the berries to put on weight before the cold season which is bound to come eventually.
These are the three corner stones we need to have a satisfying population of black grouse and willow grouse on our hunting grounds. Those two species are the most important ones to the spaniel hunter, without them we would probably not have spaniels at all, but what about the capercailzie then?
Well, sometimes we shoot capercailzie because we happen to come across them when hunting for black grouse, but we very seldom go hunting for them specially, because they are so hard to handle for the dogs. Generally they prefer the really old woods where they can hide properly; they often feed in more open terrain, but as soon as they hear you coming, they run for shelter only to fly away long before your dog can flush them in the proper way. We never try shooting at them beyond the 30 metre line, because they are extremely hard to kill.
If we would like to try to hunt for them, we do it in the early season when the yearlings sit a little bit harder. On certain conditions, they do and we do not deny that we are very glad every time we succeed in our efforts to bring one down.
The woodcock season is the perfect prelude to the main season. The woodcock season begins on August 21 and a normal year, with warm weather, it does not end before late October. As long as the ground does not freeze over, the bird can find food enough to stay. Our potato patch usually looks like a Swiss cheese around the rims, the evidence of beaks probing for earth worms.
This indicates that the nice little bird we all love to hunt, thrives in the vicinity of cultivated areas such as those we so often find in the woodlands. Around meadows, in ditches, behind barns where raspberry grow along nettles, there is always woodcock to find. The rich undergrowth in the surrounding wood is nesting places for the bird. Sometimes we have four or five flushes within two minutes just outside the potato patch, perfect for the dogs’ training, perfect for the hunting. What we look for are places with spruce, birch and aspen, with a lot of bracken, fern, raspberry and a blend of nettles and willowherb growing under them. A brook makes it even better.
The opportunities of a really nice mixed bag are obvious and in the middle of September, when all the ducks arrive on their way south, the chances of an even bigger mix are greatly improved, even though the ducks do not stay for long. The first snows are on their way and normally the ducks do not stay more than a couple of weeks. By the beginning of October there are very few of them left, so the wise hunter should do what he can to get some of them when there is still time. The season is short, that cannot be denied and before we know it the spaniel hunting season is over and another takes over, but that is another story, not to be told here.
