Moosehunting in Norway. Some pictures from 2005.

This area is about 4500 acres, and our quota this year was set at 18 moose. Devided up between bulls, cows, teens and calves. The number of moose vary as they migrate from one place to another. Some do live in the area permanently though.

A couple of hunters setting out to reach their differant posts in the agreed area:


Some of the posts the hunters use are right next to a road, while others can be a 45 minute hike to get to. The posts are devided between the hunters by pulling playing cards out of a reduced deck of cards. So it's the luck of the draw that will situate you in a "good place" or a "so-so place". All are predetermend by picking out where the moose usually pass. A few of them are in primitive stands built up out of timber, but mostly they are on the ground, so each hunter brings a small folding stool, or something that they can put on a tree stump to sit on. When all the hunters have reached their posts, the dog handler will start out with the dog(s). Some dogs are trained ot be leash dogs, and others are trained to go loose. We have both, but I personally prefere to us loose dogs when I am the one handling the dogs. Hopefully the dog will pick up the scent of a moose quickly, and then start following. Thus, the moose are forced to move, and eventually will hopefully pass one of the hunters waiting at their posts. There is of course no guarantee, and the moose do often slip by thru the hunters, as it can often be several hundred meters between them.


Sunrise up above the fog below. Down there, we could only see 50 meters, so we chose to hunt high this morning.


I had drawn a decent post that morning, and it didn't take long for the one loose dog to pick up a scent about a kilometer south from where I was. Unfortunatly, it sounded like the dog anmd moose were going the wrong way in relation to me, and would pass by somebody else eventually. But these things change, and the moose and dog turned back and forth several times. At the same time, another dog on a leash was taken thru the area from the north. After 15-20 minutes, I heard a shot south of my position. Oh well I thought, a least we have moose on the ground, even though it was someone else that got it. I heard on the radio (we use VHF radios to coordinate things) that "Bjorn" had shot a calf, and the cow had continued with the loose dog right behind. "Bjorn" was asked if he could see the calf and was certain that it was down. The reply was no, he couldn't see it, but he was pretty sure it was a good shot. His post was about 1.5 km to my south. Relativly shortly afterwards, A cow and calf come running towards me from the south, with the dog not far behind! Shit! I was certain that "Bjorn"s shot must have been muffed up somehow, so that it continue wounded without him realizing it. I swung my 375H&h up to fire a shot at the calf, even though it was going at full speed past me at about 80 meters. It was not a shot I'd have taken if on a unharmed animal, as it was going too fast to shoot at in my opinion. But in such situations, it was better to try and get the animal down. I could actually see that I missed the first shot, as I could see the bullet hit the slope above the running animal, fired again just as it turned out of sight with the loose dog following only 50-60 meters behind. When these things happen, and you can't see from your position that the animal is down, we always wait for the guy with leashed dog to come and check things out. This gives a mortally wounded moose time to die (problem solved), and if it's not dead, it will most likely lay down and stiffen up a bit if not pushed right away. Eventually, he came along, following the track where they had first come from. As he rounded to top of the hill that the moose dissapeard behind, he called out to me and said the calf was laying there. I was kind of relieved! The last shot had hit it in the neck, bringing it straight down, but right out of my line of sight. Hitting it in the neck was pure luck... simultaneously, another dog was checking out the place where "Bjorn" had first shot at the calf, and it turned out that it was laying there! What had happend was that the dog continued after the cow as he mentioned, but then by chance had switched over to another cow and calf on it's way towards me! So the calf I shot was in fact not the "wounded" one from him, since it was actually dead, but an unharmed one. Meanwhile, the lone cow, passed by another hunter further to the west. As mentioned, I wouldn't have taken the shot if I'd known it was unharmed, but things got confused by poor "intel"... Anyway, both calves were down, and shortly after, yet another moose was shot by my mother. A nice bull. It was quite an eventfull day so far.



The rest of the day was spent recovering the animals, and bringing them back down to were we hang them up. To do this, we use a belt driven "contraption" to get them out one by one to the nearest road. It's pretty effective:








My mothers bull:


My daughter, hopefully a future huntress. She thought is was a lot of fun touching the moose, and sitting on top of them:


Hanging up a moose for skinning. When finished with skinning, it'll be moved to the rails along the side of the room to hang until ready to be cut up, or sold:


When I'm the "dog handler", I prefere to use our dog loose. She's only 1.5 years old, but is looking very promising. Shortly before the hunting season started, I was out with her in the forest training when she found a young moose, and started to bay. After letting her do that for a while, I was able to sneak in close. Only 10-12 meters away in fact! I then sat down, and watched her and the moose for about 5 minutes before the moose became aware of me peeking at it from behind the trees. It took off of course, and had I been hunting, it would have been a relativly easy kill. Since she's so young, she had never had a moose shot for her before, and it would have been a perfect situation for her training. Hoping for such luck when hunting season started though was most likely only a dream.

However, one morning when I was in the car driving to where she and I would start walking from, I hear on the radio that a moose had been shot, and If I could come and check it out. I turned around and went to where the hunter was waiting, and was pointed out where the moose had stood when he shot at it. Jega (the dog) and I walked the 150 meters to where he had indicated, and imediatly found a track. Only 50 meters on, I see the bull laying on the ground, facing away from me at about 40 meters. It doesn't move a muscle. I thus call up on the radio, and tell the other guys that the bull is down, and if the shooter can come up and help me gut it. The second I say that, the moose jumps up and runs off! As I was sure it was dead, I didn't even have my rifle up (yeah yeah, I know, really unprofessional!). Jega went ballistic! I was barely able to remove her leash, since she was jumping straight up and down, and sideway all at the same time. When I did fumble it off after some struggle, she tore off after the moose, and the chase was on. As the moose was wounded beyond any doubt this time, I waited some minutes before following, so that I wouldn't push the moose more than necessary. It didn't take long for Jega to bay the moose though. Only a few hundred meters, and after a while, I slowly started to sneak up on them, following her barking. It was important to let her bay for a while, as this is needed for moose dogs to learn the right way of doing things. A moose that is bayed for some time will eventually not be bothered much by other noises, and will then be easier to sneak in on. Slowly, I crept up to them thru the dense forest, and was able to see the mooses chest thru the branches. But no more. I could also see Jega down below the lowest branches, and placed a shot thru the mooses chest. It then turned a bit and I could thus see it's neck which I placed a second shot into. It went down like a load of bricks, and Jega had not been bothered by either shot. This was a big moment for her and me, as it was her "first moose", and also the first time I had shot a moose in such a situation. I've shot about 40 moose up till now, but never for my own baying dog. I really enjoyed it. Jega took a minute to be brave enough to get close to the big dead moose, but when she did, it was like a light had been switched on. She went wild, tearing the fur off the moose, and I let her enjoy herself.


Jegas first moose:


Notice the orange "vests" on the dogs (Jega and her sister Tuva). They both have a GPS tracker on them ( "Pointer GPS tracker"] that enables the dog handler to track them with a special GSM cell phone using SMS messages. In areas where the dog may be kilometers away, and you may not even know in which direction, this tool can be quite handy. I could then radio to the various hunters, warning them if the dog was coming their way, and that they should get ready.



A couple of days later, Jega picked up a track and took off as she should. Shortly after, a shot rang out and I was informed that it was a calf that had been shot. But the shooter was not sure of the shot, and wasn't able to see if the calf went down. I saw on the GPS tracker that Jega was moving at high speed northwards, and so was pretty sure that the calf wasn't dead yet. After a while I reached the shooter, and found out that the calf had been moving at rather high speed when he shot (he should have not shot in that instance he admitted...), and I checked out the area for blood. And found nothing. Shortly afterwards, while I was continuing to search for blood in the tall wet grass, Jega returned. I called her in, but she quickly took off again in the direction the animals had moved. Suddenly she started barking, and I could hear that she was moving thru the dense bush together with a larger animal. The calf most likely. It later turned out that when the hunter shot, the cow and calf had quickly seperated, and Jega had continued after the cow northwards, while the calf had turned off to the east a bit. This time the was no escape for the calf though. It ran a few hundred meters before Jega was able to stop it up, and I then let her bay for about 30 minutes while I sat down on a tree stump to wait a bit. It was an important opportunity for her as a young dog to practice baying at a moose that wouldn't move far. Shortly after, Jegas sister; Tuva also arrived and started to bay. So it was good training for her too. Eventually, I moved in as quietly as possible, and was able to sneak up to about 10-12 meters away so I could see the calf between the branches, and the dogs 5 meters in front of it. The calf turned it's head towards me, and before it could move, I put a .308win in it's brain. Both dogs took no notice of the shot, and I moved in to tie them to seperate trees near the dead calf. Moose dogs in this situation become very possesive, and will often fight each other to establish that the moose is "theirs", and not the other dogs. Both got a chance then one by one to chew on the calf a bit.

Jega having fun ripping off fur from the calf:


In the next few days, the remaining moose were hunted and we were soon finished. Jega and I had several other situations, but none that ended up with anything for us. All in all, moose season went over way too fast, and I'm looking forward to next year already!

I always enjoy reading you detailed posts, Erik, and looking at the fine pics that help bring the story to light in my head. I thank you for letting some of us here live vicariously through your hunts.

KG

P.S. You can sell game meat in Norway? How does it get kept in check as far as keeping unscrupulous guys from profiting from poaching activities? Strict regulation, or not much of a market? Just curious.

Hi Eric

Thanks for the story. That photo of your daughter is very cute!

I visited Umea, Sweden in 2003 for the World Benchrest Championships and really enjoyed the time there and the people. Scandinavians and Australians seem to have a very similar nature. I did see some moose hunting dogs on a farm while in Sweden, but never saw a moose on this trip - except for a paper target which I shot

I sure hope to get back over there for some hunting in the next few years

Fergus

PS, thats me with the running moose target.

Thank you Erik , I'm glad the Yule Nisse was good to you this year.

Hi Erik,

Excellent report! What are the chances of success if a hunter moves quietly through the woods on his own hoping to find a shootable moose?

And what length barrel do you think is optimal for Norwegian forest hunting?

Nice acount. I hope to make a northern Euro moose hunt while I am living in Europe.

I was thinking Estonia as it's pretty expensive to hunt in Sweden or Norway as a dude.

Not that Estonia isn't expensive E4500 will cover a trophy bull and 2 wild boar.

Erik what rifle did you use on moose/elch whatever you guys call them

Nice pics and great story Erik.....keep them coming
You guys have real professional set up for the butchering !!
Where about are your hunting ??
It´s a pity it´s so long til the next moose season ........

What a great story and great pictures...Norway looks a lot like the western part of Oregon, or Washington or Western Canada....

It sure would be great if we hunters were our own little group in this world.. where politics didn't effect us... and hunting didn't cost so much in taxes and fees....

If there is a heaven and I have a choice as to what type of heaven I can go to... I think it would be a Hunting heaven....

to be able to hunt different places and countries... I'd love to be able to go to Scandanavia,Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand to hunt every year ( I have no desire to go to Africa!).... but even moreso, I'd love to be able to meet and have friends from all of those different places.... and have them as my guests to hunt here in Oregon each year....

The pictures of hunting at higher elevations.. with the valleys covered in a sea of fog is one of the things I love to see the most here in Oregon.... there is some sort of divinical peacefulness being up there above the 'clouds" down below....And to be able to see so many snow capped peaks... sometimes several hundred miles away from where you are at...

Great pictures Eric!

cheers
seafire

Erik, is that the same Defender you drove to South Africa?

Kamo Gari,

Meat is sold, but has to be checked and stamped by a vet. Poaching is not a big problem when it comes to moose, but smaller animals such as roedeer and birds are most likely poached now and then. We have plans for leaving the main 5 km dirt road open, but locking some of the smaller sideroads (there's about 25 km of sideroads) all year round to deal with that. (the dirt roads are not like seen in the top picture, but are normal dirt roads. The top picture is actually a tractor/forrestry "road")

Fergus,

The running moose targets are very good training, and not as easy as many people would think! It should be manditory IMO for all moosehunters to try this type of target.

Dan,

The chances of a hunter getting a moose by sneaking around is reasonably high. And that's one of the possibilities for the dog handler, as he is often doing this for an hour or longer while the dog is out searching. However, the reason we (and most hunting "teams" in Norway) do things the way we do is because of the number of moose we need to shoot. It has to do with efficiency. We are thinking though of setting aside a moose or two just for our little family, so that we can do as you mention for the fun of it in a few years. Bear in mind though that a "shootable" moose over here can be both a bull/cow/teen or calf! And we don't get the huge antlered moose that they have over in NA. I think a barrel length around 20 inches is good for hunting in the forest, although for the hunters sitting on the various posts it doesn't really matter that much. They usually don't have to battle their way thru the thickest stuff to get to the posts. It's the dog handler (and hunters who sneak around) that would benifit from a shorter barrel IMO.

Seth,

I used my 375H&H on the calf I shot while sitting at a post, while the other 2 animals I shot with the dog were with a borrowed stainless/synthetic 308win. The 308 is probably the most common moose hunting cartridge in Norway, due to many guys having had access to free ammo from the military. A

And yes, it is the same Land Rover my wife and I drove and lived in from the North Cape of Norway to Cape Agulas in South Africa. It's still going strong!

Arild,

We're in Nord Odal, near Sand (20 km from Eidsvoll). We are getting a little worried over what the future will bring when it comes to moose hunting, due to the increasing wolf and bear population. We've already begun to notice it. My cousin who hunts near Kongsvinger (where there are lots of wolves) has had his moose quota halved from what it used to be. And no one over there wants to use loose dogs any more either, since the dogs often get killed by wolfs while hunting. Both moose hounds and dogs for hunting hare and roedeer...

Ok Erik...then I know more or less where you hunt. Prime moose area with loooong traditions The increasing wolf population will sertanly have an influence regarding the big game hunting in the years to come.
As you mentioned, the age old tradition hunting moose and hare with free roaming dogs, might come to an end in wolf infested areas.

Where I hunt in Nordland ( not far from the Bjørgefjell National Park ), there are no wolf as far as we have observed, but bear, lynx and wolverine are frequevently seen.
Sheep farming and lots of reindeer in the area supply a tasty diet for the beasts

We have also observed a change in behavior regarding moose when we have bear in the area.
The cows and calves move closer to the farms / populated areas, but the bulls and the spikes puts in high gear and get the hell out of there.
Wery frusterating.....

Erik is a man of many talents.

Drove from Norway to South Africa!

And answered five of us at once!

Nice job!

Another adorable baby daughter on AR! Not to mention a really interesting hunt story. That definitely sounds like something to try in a few years.

quote:

Originally posted by D99:
Erik is a man of many talents.

Drove from Norway to South Africa!

And answered five of us at once!

Nice job!

My multitasking ability is indeed quite amazing!

Arild,

We had a bear in our area 2 years ago that had killed a moose calf right by the road. The moose were very scitterish that year. Last year we found quite a lot of bear shit, and again the moose were hard to deal with.

These bears don't live there permanantly, but pass thru, and stay for a while from time to time. It seems to be getting more and more often though. The same goes for wolves...

But how long will it take before the powers that be can be convinced to open the season on bear and wolf? Don't let them declare predators sacred like the urban idiots did with California's cougar!

Sarge,

Norway is worse then Califonia, and the general population here has long ago been brainwashed into believing that predators are sacred. And that wolves are worth more than the people who live outside cities in areas that have these recently reintroduced animals...

Many people here even think that wolves are near extinct in the world. Even though our wolves are genetically the same as those found in Russia, where there are massive amounts of them...

Crap! I suppose the only solution is the same one that we ought to pursue here: Feed the urbanites to the predators!

Again great post Erik.

You can very nice photos too, I wish my photos for my hunt stories looked as good. I always seem to get my thumb in the way or have it out of focus...

quote:

Originally posted by Oldsarge:
Crap! I suppose the only solution is the same one that we ought to pursue here: Feed the urbanites to the predators!

Also applicable, as I have heared from Skandinavian friends: Shoot the wolf into the guts with a FMJ bullet, then let it run away and die.

Remark: Do not do this at home!

Eric,

thanks a lot for the great story and the pictures. Also, congratulations to your daughter, mother and dog, some great family, indeed!

I am training a Deutscher Jagd Terrier (at least I am trying to teach him "some" manners) and can imagine how it feels when the little beast has his first successes on game. So far, mine who's now 11 month has only had the opportunity to trail and find already dead game. I am trying to start him slowly.

Erik

Thankyou for posting. An excellent account and pics.

Thanks

Thansk for posting Erik, great story and great pictures, hope I oneday get the chance to visit your country.

Wonderful pictures and experience I am sure. Good luck to you!

What calibers do you use?

Fantastic pictures, Erik. Congratulations and thanks for the detailed report.

Erik,

What do you call that tracked moose cart? Moose donkey?

quote:

Originally posted by D99:
Erik,

What do you call that tracked moose cart? Moose donkey?

Ours is a homemade contraption, but simular things are available commercially. They are usually called "Elg trekk" (Moose puller). It can go pretty much everywhere, but you often need a guy on each side to stablize it depending on the terrain.

Cool! Those pictures could easily be called B.C.
As far as black bears kill the sons a bitches!! A good size blackie will dessimate a lot of moose calves.

Erik,

Beats the hell out of lifting half a moose onto a horse or quad.

quote:

Originally posted by .366torque:
Cool! Those pictures could easily be called B.C.
As far as black bears kill the sons a bitches!! A good size blackie will dessimate a lot of moose calves.

366torque,

Our bears are actually brown bears (smaller versions of your grizzly I guess?). And although they are vegitarians most of the year, they still eat a considerable amount of moose calves...

The wolves are worse though.

Erik, I suppose the human vegitarians keep you from killing wolves and bears?

Just like ours try to.

Seth,

You are definatly right about that. And the idiots who decide these things are usually the city dwelling types that rarely get out in the woods...