Barking up the right tree

Hunting black grouse and capercaillie with a pointing dog in Sweden is both noisy and nerve-racking, as Thomas Nissen discovers

- Thomas Nissen

The forest is alive with noise. Poju has been barking constantly for the past half hour. He’s spotted our quarry and is urging us forward to bag the prize. I’m waiting with Poju’s handler, Miranda Frings, on the fringe of a patch of marshland, but somewhere between us and the dog my fellow hunter, Daniel Smith, is edging his way towards the sound’s source. His slow, stealthy movements are at odds with my own racing pulse. There’s a still quality to the afternoon that surrounds and emphasises the dog’s insistent barking. Then a sharp bang splits the air, followed by silence — the bird has fallen. Poju, who was named as Sweden’s champion in 2019, has done his job well and is now quiet once more.

Hunting by sound

The tactics are simple to understand, if not always to execute. Miranda releases Poju in an area she knows to be frequented by the birds we’re hunting: capercaillie and black grouse. Afterwards, we follow the dog for a short while, then stop and monitor his pursuit via GPS. It is important not to enter any unsearched areas because such birds don’t hold well if they sense humans nearby. When Poju finds a grouse on the ground, he flushes it out. Often the bird resettles in a tree just above the dog, but if it decides to flee further, Poju can often hear it landing and track down the tree where it has taken refuge. He does this by following a scent that the bird leaves on the ground. Once Poju has reacquired his target, he begins to bark repeatedly beneath the tree where it’s hiding. The hunter then follows the sound, covertly moving forwards, before finally taking the bird with a precisely placed bullet.