Shot opening morning this year, near Kemi, FInnland. I shot the Soni (bull) and Wasa (calf) and MArko (dog owner/handler) shot the Lammi (cow). Happi is the dog.

being in finland i got to ask if you soot sako or tikka rifles?

I was shooting a custom 7x57 I built on a VZ 24 action (I make custom guns).

Where are you in Finland? I am often in Tampere for business. I am in many other places visiting friends when I am over there. I almost married a girl in Nokia 2 years ago.

Congratulations, you have enough meat there to open your own hamburger shop. Before I depart this earth my wish is to hunt moose with a 35 Whelan, and hopefully a successful hunt

Merry Christmas

Malcolm

Weidmannsheil Marc, not an everyday hunt for driven moose!
- mike

Sako75:

Just reread your post and saw that you are not in IFnland, but was asking about Fi. SOrry about me getting confused. Yes, you do see many older Sakos. If I had to say what a "standard moose rifle" in FInland and Sweden is, based on my friends in both countries, it would be a bolt action .30-06, with the .308 running second. Older shooters often have older Saokos, younger shooters often a Remmington 700, then probably a Winchester M70. Do see a few Rem 7400 and a couple of 7600 in Finland. Of the folks I know in both countries, I rarely see a new Sako. A few of the younger men are shooting a .300 WInchester mag.

In Sweden some of the older codgers still shoot the 6.5x55, but they are in the very minority. I do see some 9.3's in both bolt actions and combo guns. Know a few friends in Sweden who hunt with drillings. They use them because they hunt Roe with dogs and use buckshot for running shots.

This is not a scientific survey by any menas, just observations about friends, co=workers, and their friends.

i am getting ready to buy a SAKO AV Laminated stock in 300 win mag for out west, elk and mule deer.
I doubt i will ever buy a new sako. i do have a 75 but it is a stoeger import, now that beretta is involved with guns blowing up, i doubt i will buy one

Here litle more sientific researc made by some finish hunting magazine. most popular caliber in finland is .308win. 1/2 mooses is shot by this. next popular is 30-06sprg (1/5). Most popular brand is Tikka, allmost half. next is Sako 1/4. Only 5% use remington and winchester 0,2%.

In this survey there was only 990 bull that had ower 10 spikes antlers

PS. sory my poor english I just realize that i haven't write like this in 3 years.

JBR,

Welcome to the forum and please don't worry about your English after all its alot better than my Finnish!

Regards,

Pete

Could someone explain the reasoning of shooting moose calfs in Scandinavia ??

quote:

Originally posted by mete:
Could someone explain the reasoning of shooting moose calfs in Scandinavia ??

It´s part of game management planning.
A spesific area is suposed to sustain a sertain amount of game, and each hunting area will be given a hunting licence according to such plans.

This might include bulls, cows and calfs and the same system are in effect for red deer, rein deer ( caribou) and moose, at least here in Norway.

Such a licens might include everything from just one single bull to 20-30 or more animals, according to the size of the area.

Shooting calfs are still a hot issue on many hunting teams, and some restrain from doing so even if they have a licence on calfs.

The spread I hunt have five animals this fall: One red stag, one red deer yearling, one moose bull and two one year moose calfs ( eighter sex ).

One must be sertain wich animal one is pulling the trigger on, cause penalties are common if you shoot the wrong sex or size.

That's pretty much the same way here, as Arild described. Shooting calfs is not a hot issue here, though.

Much more hotter issue in some hunting clubs is that is it right/reasonable to shoot moose cows? Especially the "old-timers" see it as a crime against financial rationality, since they are afraid that shooting cows will reduce their moose population for the next year. And they are actually right, too.

But when the population of moose is clearly too high, they should be able to change their views for a hunting season or two, which they almost never do.

My moose-hunting team has 3+2 licenses this year, three adult animals (whichever sex) and two calfs. So far we haven't bagged any, but we'll give it a try again next weekend.

I'd say "Happi" would be the hunters !
Nice job!

And you have to remember that at the moment in finland we shoot litle under 90 000 mooses per year. some areas there is just too many.

That's because the Finns were smart enough not to re-introduce wolves ...

Unlike certain other countries.

I hope so. These EU idiots wants to make Finland a reservation for wolfs or something like that. Ammount of wolfs have been doubled in 7 years and still it is hard to get permit to shoot wolfs which are too "friendly". It becoming a big problem some in parts. There are no exact numbers but I thing that 10 or 20 dog/year have been eaten by wolfs. Sometimes wolfs attac while dogs are hunting and sometimes right on your doorsteps at nights. There have allways been wolfs in Finland but nowdays just too many. And bacause you cant hunt them they don't fear humans anymore. Dangerous sitsuation.

quote:

Originally posted by analog_peninsula:
That's because the Finns were smart enough not to re-introduce wolves ...

Unlike certain other countries.

As far as I know, there are at least 200 wolves in Finland. They were not re-introduced, but have always been there to one degree or another due to the long border with Russia. And as each alpha male and alpha female are able to have 1-2 litters per year, with 3-6 pups each time, the math tells us where this problem is heading...

My stupid country on the otherhand is one of the kinds you mention. Although these wolves supposedly immigrated by themselves from Finland/Russia...

As the numbers are steadily increasing, many areas along our border to Sweden are seeing a substantial decrease in the moose population. Some people I know have had their quota halved since a decade ago. This decrease has taken a large chunk out of their yearly income, since they now have less moose meat to eat for themselves, and sell.

We have 19 moose on our quota; 3 bulls, 3 cows, and the rest 1 1/2 year olds and calves. This is what is theoretically needed to be taken out to keep the population, and sex ratio, stable. However, I have no doubt that the wolves will force us to change this in the near future. Although we are not in the "wolf zone", we are realatively near. And wolves don't understand that they can't cross this invisible line. I forget the exact number, but seem to recall that a wolf eats around 1.8 moose per month(?).

If it were up to me, the government would fence in a large area of government land ( a couple of thousand square km should do?), and create a vast national park were wolves could roam free, and hunt the moose and other game within that area. Any wolves that escaped despite the fencing, could be legally shot on sight. This would enable us to "save the wolves" (which is a scam IMO, as there are tens of thousands of them in Russia that will always be there due to the vast areas that are not inhabitable over there), and at the same time we wouldn't have the wolf/sheep/people/moose/etc conflicts that we do today. If poor African countries are able to have huge national parks fenced in, to seperate people and animals for boths protection, why can't the rich countries like Norway and Sweden do the same? These two countries could even have a joint national park along the border, enabling the park to be even larger.

I am unfortunately not very optimistic, as I know the politicians, the burocrats in the government, and the "animal rights" people such as the WWF prefer to ignore the problems instead of solve them...

I tip my hat Erik, well said !
So sad but so true......

S-S-S.

quote:

Originally posted by analog_peninsula:
S-S-S.

This is only able to take the tip off the iceberg when it comes to the problems that are building up over here. Wolves reproduce too quickly, and are thus too hard to keep control over.

Which is why we need a whole new policy IMO, such as the fenced National Park idea I mention.

quote:

Originally posted by Arild Iversen:
I tip my hat Erik, well said !
So sad but so true......

Arild,

The really sad thing is that such a national park, be it just on our side of the border or together with Sweden, could potentially finance itself to a certain degree if they set it up with roads, camps, etc for tourists.

But instead, we send shitloads of money to countries in Africa so that they can do what we should be doing at home!

I don't know if you knew...but the Wolf issue is a big thing here in Wyoming, USA. The federal gov't introduced wolves to our state about 5 years ago in Yellowstone park...now they have multiplied & have reduced the Elk & Moose populations, also killing hunting dogs when they can. Everyone here in the State of Wyoming is really mad about the situation as the state had no say in the decision. Our State Governor is suing the Fish & Game Dep't that introduced the wolves...the state wants to be able to shoot them if they are outside of Yellowstone park.
Best Regards,
Tom

The number of dogs killed by volwes is more like 100 per year nowadays. The 20-30-figures that are regarded "official" are taken from the insurance companies asking how many wolf-eaten dogs they have paid for in the last year. Many dogs are not insured at all and they never make it to the official figures.

The S-S-S works in some extent here too. Actually my view is that the problem volwes appear only in the southern part of Finland because of the forest vegetation. It is too thick for snowmobiles there, whereas in Lapland the scenery is much more open and snowmobiles get to everywhere.

Using snowmobiles in hunting is strictly forbidden in here, but that doesn't seem to slow their pace much...

Here in Estonia, moose hunting is based on the same principles as described before. We have 20 moose permits this year. At least half of them are calfs. Reason to shoot calf not grown animal is because big moose will survive winter more likely than calf.
Estonia, which is at least three times smaller than Finland or Swenden, maybe even more, bute we have at least 300..400 wolves plus 400..500 brown bears. No idea about lynx population but it's high too. Problem is that EU does not permit hunting them. You can get a permit but it's tough road trough paperwork to get it. Wolves, bears and lynx have always been here and now suddenly they need protection. EU idiots from italy or germany think that if they have killed all their predators then we are dumb enough to do same thing. So now they want to turn Estonia into some kind of wildlife park. Of course this kind on legislations brough great increase in accidents with wolves. They get into accidents with cars a lot more now. And after being hit by the car, wolf will be shot for mercy. But noone knows, which happened first, the shot or the hit by the car...

TO: Qnn. Do you know the story what happened to that bear that wondered to germany last summer. Huge HALOO and they shot it in few weeks. One bear. It was first bear in that area for a long time.

We have here about 800-1000 bears and about same ammoount of lynxes. Hard to count because 1300 km border with russia.

New right wing Government in Sweden might see some change on the wolf/lynx licensing situation?

I hear that not all anti freeze sold in rural areas is used in cars?

Had the best moose hunting weekend so far. We shot total 5 moose and 4 of them came to my account
1 bull, 1 cow and 2 calfs.

Congrats Qnn, that's a really good bag! Our team bagged 1 moose cow and our fellow team got four in total on weekend.

1894mk2: And neither is all the superlon foam used in mattresses...