Hunting for Black Gold

Together with Norwegian hunting expert Jon Steinar Vangen, my colleague Jørn Bakken, a photographer, and I wanted to spend a weekend stalking capercaillies and black grouse. Neither Jørn nor I had ever shot a capercaillie before, often referred to as Sweden's black gold. We were ready for the adventure.

Winter hunting for capercaillie or black grouse tends to be a rather cold affair, at least if you are looking for prime conditions. Little wind, snowy and frosty trees, minus 10 degrees Celsius or lower and a hard layer of snow on top of the ground so the birds cannot dive down and break through the snow into a den are ideal conditions. If there is too much wind or if the temperatures are too low, the birds will not be grazing in the top of the trees. This time, however, minus 20 degrees Celsius were awaiting the hunters who set out to hunt capercaillie and black grouse in January in Sweden. Borderline conditions if one wants to be successful. Careful planning is essential.

Success factor 1: Careful planning
Only three hunting days have been set aside which makes the hunt rather ambitious. A team of four people means that sneaking into the shooting range of the birds becomes more demanding. The key to success is therefore to make a good plan. To increase our odds to find birds, we split up into two teams. We study the terrain on a map and plan our routes that consist of a lot of big marshy areas with older forest in the surroundings and old logging areas. If we would find the birds up in the top of the trees, these are the most likely areas. One could also use satellite maps on one’s phone in advance to plan more thoroughly and to know what the terrain really looks like.

The first hunting day started with deep snow and a forest dressed perfectly in frosty white color. It is calm but with minus 20 degrees Celsius the conditions are not exactly ideal for finding the birds. Anyway, a sunny and clear blue sky makes for a magical scenery throughout the day. With our rifles securely packed into our backpacks, we grab our skies, poles and head out. The snow is deep, very deep. Even if the amount of snow seems sometimes overwhelming, our wide skies and a powdery top level of snow help us move through the terrain silently. We scout constantly with the binoculars to locate our prey, capercaillie or black grouse.

After skiing and spotting for a couple of hours, we locate our first birds. The black dots at the horizon are easy to spot in the all-white trees. It is even a group of capercaillies! Optimism and excitement washes immediately over the group. Our first chance. Now it is a matter of getting into shooting range without scaring the birds off. There is no rush when stalking because during those short cold winter days these birds want to use as little energy as possible. For all we know this can be the only chance we get, so let us use it wisely. We stalk through the edge of the forest besides an open marshy area. The shooting distances can be long for this type of hunt but we want to get as close as possible. After a while, we measure the distance, the display in our MINOX X-range shows 223 meters to chosen tree. Without having any more trees or hiding possibilities, we decide to put ourselves in a position to take a shot. We are moving forward and backward, up and down, all to find that much needed gap to be able to take the shot through the trees in the distance where the bird is sitting. Finally, a clear view. The sound of a rifle shot with a 6,5x55 SE breaks the silence in the winter landscape. The bird drops down while four, more lucky, of its companions fly away. We have our capercaillie debut for one of our hunters, and it is a big one! The stress makes way for wide smiles.