Stefan goes hunting! (page 1)

Moose hunting means a lot of waiting, waiting for the moose to show up. Basically you go out in the morning and sit where they are known to look for food.  Later in the day they normally lay still, so then you have to disturb them by going about in the forest, preferrably with a dog, while some people wait at selected spots for an ability to shoot (which is what I'm doing here).

Then when (and if) something happens, you have to be quick!

And when the moose has been downed, who isn't just totally overjoyed? This is my dad's labrador retriever Henna, aged 3, who is a highly enthusiastic hunting comrade.

Photographing live moose is a little hard - especially when you also want to shoot them, so alas I can only show pictures of dead ones. But in case I'm ever out with a camera and spot one I'll add the picture here.
 

This time the lucky shooter was not me though, but my father, to the left in the picture. Being in a bad position he bravely crawled some 70 meters on his hands and knees to get a clean shot. Here my cousin Claes is helping him getting the inner parts out.

And here he's seen proudly posing with his prey, a young moose cow (most likely born last year, so about 1.5 years old).

Then the next step is to hang the moose up and skin it before you can cut it up into eatable parts.

And when that's done it looks something like this. It is then left hanging for at least a day to cool off before it is cut up.

At this stage you may have begun wondering about the red ribbons we are wearing on our hats. It is to be able to see each other on long distances in the forest so that we don't accidentally shoot at each other. Mooses are colorblind though, so they don't react anymore to this red color than to the green in the forest that is the same grayscale. There is in general a big focus on safety in Swedish hunting. In order to have a license for a hunting weapon you have to pass theoretical as well as practical tests, and weapons must be kept in a safe when not used.

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