Sometimes things just fall into place...
Yesterday turned out to be a pretty decent hunting day, the weather was favourable and the light brigade of home village deer enthusiasts including myself had a ball.

The three of us started out in the fresh snow and Mr S began tracking a lone deer while Mr H and myself went ahead to intercept. After an hour the buck was up and was heading towards me - behind me was a large opening (where no sound buck would make his escape) and my eyes were fixed on the narrow pass all sane deer use. As you all can imagine, this was obviousely not a sane deer, as it ran behind me right into the opening of maybe 4 hectares. I heard him, rose and turned around - there he jumps, close to me were some trees that blocked the view, so - up rifle and when he clears the trees... What, no deer?
As it turned out he had (of course) heard me moving and had stopped just behind the trees so I couldn´t see him. I moved to my left and saw him standing broadside ca 75 m. But he saw me as well and took off - my shot was high over his back. I reloaded as fast as the Mannlicher would let me and just as he reached the ridge in the opening I fired again instinctively ca 100 m. Imagine my joy when minutes later I found the buck on his back, legs in the air - hit in the shoulder.

The rifle a Mannlicher Schönauer M1950 with a claw mounted Pecar 4x; bought at an auction for 400 € as a 6,5x54 MS, but turned out to have been rechamered to 6,5x55 with a slightly excessive headspace, but nothing Lapua brass can´t handle - Corelokt 140 grs and 48grs of N165 - should make about 770 m/s. First kill with the rifle.
My friends came over and we dragged the buck down to the forrest road. As we entered the road Mr H said "who´s that coming down the road? Maybe 500 m of on the straight road were two deer approaching us. We sat down and waited. As they came closer they turned out to be yearlings, slowly approaching. Should I have a go? I asked. They came slowly and it took them five minutes to close the distance to about 170 m, when one of them suddenly turned broadside. The Mannlicher sort of fired by it self. All I had to do was kneel properly. "It´s in the bag", Mr H said. The deer rushed forward, the other one held for a moment and jumped off in the opposite direction. We found my second kill 20 m off the road a good lungshot.

I then volunteered for tracking the other yearling, but just as we started to plan the next move, Mr S´s Sako (in the picture) changed plans with a frozen cocking piece - "well that sort of makes me the tracker", Mr S said.
So off he went and I made it back to where I first waited for the buck. 20 minutes later the other yearling fell to a heartshot.

I shit you not. It felt unreal, as we had been hunting all month without success.
The third deer waiting for transport.

Not only that, Mr S had noticed tracks from a hare, went home for his hound and shot the hare on the same spot.
So all in all a good deal of good meat in the highly sofisticated slaughter house for three happy deerhunters

Please notice the fine antique chair..
Oh, and on my way home I stopped to take a picture

when an old hunting friend drove up and asked me about our day- Oh, we got three, a buck and two yearlings, I answered. "Where about did you get them?" he asked. "On your land actually", I said, truthfully, "all of them." He looked at me in disbelief. "Who made the kills?" he asked. "Oh I got them all", I said. As he drove off laughing, he shouted "you´re a true hunter, you lie good!"

Boha

Sheesh! We should all get such hunting in our backyard.

Well done boha! I guess I didn't even know you had whitetial in Finland. When I was there in the 1970's I saw plenty of moose and reindeer but no whitetail. At the time I was only enjoying the view. The many lakes and Finish girls were most attractive... not necessarily in that order.

We´ve had whitetail deer for 75 years, the first three were a present from Finnish emigrants living in Minnesota. Later on we received a few more of which a two died so the whole population is based on 3-4 animals. I think we shoot about 10-15 000 animals a year. We don´t get the trophy quality that you have in the US and Canada but with the genetics and the climate...

By the way, Boha and Mr S are friends and Mr H is my cousin!

They sure can make a guy proud...and envious

We don't have many huge deer here in Virginia or Marylan either. The biggest I ever killed was about 175 kilos and the biggest I ever saw about 200 kilos. We have a different problem though. Ample food and mild winters mean just too many whitetail. The number of Sika is also growing in the Northeast. Like most industrious immigrants they have flourished here. I've even seen them in the Washington D.C. area. Maybe the increase in coyotes will help control the deer and Sika. We even have Coyotes in Rock Creek Park in downtown Washinton D.C. Or maybe the number of cougars in VA an MD will grow and help some.

I'm sure that if you asked really nicely, California would love to send you some spare mountain lion to help protect the people who go out in the woods. Colorado would gladly contribute and so would British Columbia. Now if we could just train them to eat Members of Congress . . .

Well, Oldsarge, we do have wolves instead of mountain lions that taunt our livestock, hunting dogs and game. And they have friends in Brussels and lakeys in greenish societies in large cities, don´t you know.
And we bag about 8000 deer from a population of about 30000 deer every year in Finland.

Boha

27 000 deer? Jeez the numbers have grown a LOT.

Don´t forget the lynx -they just love roe deer, whitetails, cats and dogs.

Our bears are a bit lazy though, they only manage to kill a jogger every other year or so...

I can confirm that there is good whitetail hunting in S. Finland. The last weekend I was the first time with some friends about one hour N. of Turku. Met great people and saw lots of deer. Nice country, I hope there will be another opportunity next season!

Holauge. Are you sure you meant 200 kilos as that makes it a 440 pound deer.

Great stuff boha!

Sometimes everything fall into place and it seemes like you had one of those days!


Most of the the hunting seson is over up here in the Umeå area. The capers and black grouse isn´t showing as the used to do in last couple of years in the areas I hunt. The birdhunting seson for caper anc black grouse ends next weekend and after that there will be more gunsmithing and waiting for the springhunt on roebucks

Stefan

The biggest deer I´ve seen in Finland and it was 90 kgs skinned and gutted. It was a ten pointer taken two years back and bigger than an elk yearling.

If there is any truth in a 220kg buck I´m in line for one!

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Originally posted by cewe:
The biggest deer I´ve seen in Finland and it was 90 kgs skinned and gutted. It was a ten pointer taken two years back and bigger than an elk yearling.

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Would that make a 150 kg life weight?

The deer I saw this year in Loimaa were bigger than the ones we hunted in Ontario. 220 kg still seem to be a lot!

Cewe, where do you hunt!

I guess 150kg living weight wouldn´t be far from the truth, maybe a bit less. 220kg sounds awsome! I hunt South of Turku and we have big population, trophy size is questionable though and nothing like the racks you see from the US and Canada.

Boha,

Do the Whitetail compete with any other animals when it comes to food etc? Moose? Roedeer?

All I can say is that I'm insanely jealous, since I wish the former Norwegians that went over to the US also sent back such presents many years ago. I guess they were too stingy, or couldn't be bothered...

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Originally posted by ErikD:

Do the Whitetail compete with any other animals when it comes to food etc? Moose? Roedeer?
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I´ve read that deer and roedeer do feed at the same places exept for the deer buck, who usually chases the roebuck away.
Where I hunt roe is a novelty so I have no firsthand info, but the moose and the deer do not as far as I can see compete. They coexist.

Boha

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They coexist.

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Maybe smuggling some Whitetails over here from Finland, and then introducing them to our Norwegian forests would be an interesting idea!

After all, if our corrupt government got away with reintroducing wolves into Norway, why shouldn't I get to introduce some harmless Whitetails!

Send me 2 dozen please!

quote:

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Originally posted by ErikD:
All I can say is that I'm insanely jealous, since I wish the former Norwegians that went over to the US also sent back such presents many years ago. I guess they were too stingy, or couldn't be bothered...

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What about a AR Forum whitetail hunt next season in Finnland!?

ErikD!

With the amount of reddeer in some areas of Norway I wouldn´t complain

I have been to place just south of Ålösund a couple of times for reds and the amount of deers was unbelevable

Stefan

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With the amount of reddeer in some areas of Norway I wouldn´t complain

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Alas, they are on the west coast, and are not found in my neck of the woods. BTW, the red dear actually compete with moose for food. But even if there were red dear here, why not have both them and white tails!!! The more the merrier

I've seen deer that go 150kg on the hoof here in Canada and can't quite think they'd go 220kg - I'm thinking it was 200lbs?

Anyway, good write-up boha!

Question: How does trophy judging work for Whitetails in Finland? Same as for Roe Deer with skull weight taken into account?

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Originally posted by Evan L.:
Question: How does trophy judging work for Whitetails in Finland? Same as for Roe Deer with skull weight taken into account?

Hi, Evan. Trophy judging in Finland is done according to CIC rules, and I could´t find anything about skull weight on the appropriate forms. CIC info

Boha

Thanks boha, just what I was looking for.

Do you ever discuss whitetail trophy scores? If so, do you use inches or cm's? Points only?

We are more subsistance hunters around here, as our moosehuntiong during the last couple of decades has been more culling than trophy hunting, and our trophies are of modest quality. The trophy is sort of a secondary reward, I think. We use cm though.
I have a few deertrophies myself, but I have never got around to measuring them. They are more of mementos of a memorable hunt.

Boha