Vesihämähäkki

Olin lukenut, että vesihämähäkki on on Suomen suurin hämähäkkilaji, mutta en koskaan uskonut, että otus on näin suuri. Koko vastakkaisten raajojen päiden välillä oli noin 70 mm! Kuulemma tämä voi purrakin.

Revanssi

Hyttyset inisivät korvissa ja hiki pisaroi niskassa, kun rymistelin ryteikössä kohti koskea. Kaikkea sitä tuleekin harrastettua: puskee itsensä hyttyspilvessä ryteikköisessä metsässä n. kahden km:n päässä sijaitsevalle koskelle, heittää hyönteis- tai pikkukalajäljitelmää kalalle, saa kalan haksahtamaan ja rantautuksen jälkeen vapauttaa saaliin. No fakta kylläkin on, etteivät tämän joen kalat lautasella mitään kulinaristisia nautintoja suo. Kerran olen kokeillut ja päättelin, ettei tätä syö kissakaan! Toisaalta alkukesän luonnon rauha ja kauneus sekä se ainainen onnistumisen odotus virittää mielen aina uuteen reissuun

Tiesin, että siinä poolissa oli kala. Olin käynyt paikalla vikkoa aikaisemmin ja näin kun taimen yritti perhoon, mutta se vain hipaisi sitä ja passivoitui. Kyljen välähdys kertoi silloin, että tämä kala oli n. 40 cm:n luokkaa.

Nyt lähestyin pooliin tulevaa virtaa ylhäältä ja suuntasin ensommäiset heitot kovaan virtaan. Pieni streamer näkyi hieman savisameassa vedessä melko selvästi. Seuraava heitto oli hieman piodempi ja pyörteilevä virta vei perhon virran reunaan ja heti välähi kylki ja kiinni oli. Pirteä veitikka tämä: hyppi monta kertaa ja pyrki alaspäin. Kevyt vapa oli aina notkolla, kun päättäväisesti estin pakoyritykset. Muutam minuutin kuluttua sain kalan haaviin. Kaunis ja virheetön luonnon taimen.

Piipahdus Pusulassa

Pitkästä aikaa perhoreissu Pusulaan. Joen vesitilanne oli kuivasta keväästä huolimatta varsin hyvä, tosin vesi jo 19 asteista. Vesi oli myös suhteellisen kirkasta, joskin selvästi sameampaa kuin vajaa parikymmentä vuotta sitten, jolloin tutustuin paikkaan ensi kerran. Päivänkorentoa ja vesiperhosta kuoriutui kirkkaassa illassa runsaasti, mutta vain särjet tuikkivat niitä jahdaten.

Talven aikana rannan omistaja oli poistanut puustoa uoman reunoilta, joka tietysti päästää runsaammin valoa ja lämpösäteilyä jokeen. Tämä ei tee hyvää jalokalakannalle. Työ oli myös tehty varsin rumasti, koska jopa kahden metrin kantoja oli jätetty törröttämään pystyyn.

Kuljin virtaa alaspäin vanhoja hyviä pooleja kalastellen, mutta saaliina oli vain kolme särkeä ja yksi ahven. Saunanivan siltakin oli jo puoliksi romahtanut. harvinaisen hiljaista kaiken kaikkiaan. Tästä joesta saisi kyllä kunnostamalla aivan ensiluokkaisen paikan, nyt pusikot ja harkitsemattomat rantojen puuston poistamiset heikentävät paikan potentiaalia.

Piipahdin myös Karisjärvenkosken alapuolella, siellä myös samanlaista rantojen parturointia. Puolihuolimattomien heittojen tuloksena yksi ahven.

In wait for white-tailed deer

That hunting tower could not be considered properly as such: it was actually a small hut, with a ridged roof; three windows and a proper door. All windows could be opened, and for the best: a soft couch inside! The hut was placed in a slope so that you needed to climb only couple of stairs to get in. The interior was designed geniously: you could place a solid support under your rifle to help shooting.

After having climbed in I opened the door window and secured it with a hanging rope. The window gave me a direct view to the feeding place about sixty meters ahead. Just around three o'clock I had it all ready; a comfortable position, the door window securely opened, rifle loaded and everything ok. The temperature had fallen during the drive from Helsinki to Urjala. Now it was minus six of centigrade.

The view through the shooting opening was actually like a painting: a couple of clouds in the deep blue sky, a hay barn behind a snowy field, tall spruces around the field with snow on the branches. I smiled, leaned backwards a started to wait.

Only after twenty minutes I suddenly noticed someting moving behind the closest spruces behind the feed approximately a hundred meters away. I could not see what it was but my first guess turned out to be right: a lonely deer was closing carefully the feed. It stopped for a couple of minutes before it stepped to the field, out of the woods. As the deer approached the feed I could feel the increasing pace of my heart.

Quietly I rose my rifle and aimed through the scope. It felt almost too easy, the red aiming spot was clearly visible, the rifle was steadily laying on a soft rest and the deer stood still. As this was my first deer hunting ever, I wasn't sure of the right aiming spot. It was also difficult to determine whether this animal was an adult or a fawn. As the deer rose its head towards me I fired. The shock of the hit made the deer kneel for a moment, but it immediately made huge leaps to the left accross the small snow covered field. For a moment I wondered whether the shot was a bad one and reloaded quickly in order to shoot again. But after a couple of seconds I saw that the deer's movements slowed down. The animal reached only the edge of the woods and fell down.

What to do now, I wondered? Then I clearly remembered the instructions given: if it is a deadly shot and you can see your quarry, you don't need to go to have a closer look. The rest of the herd can be close. So I lowered the rifle and send a SMS to my hunting buddies Sakke and Heikki who waited besides other feeding places: first fawn shot down.

Sakke answered immediately with congratulations. He wanted to know whether my quarry was a fawn or an adult. A fawn - to the best of my knowledge - I answered (which later on turned out to be a wrong answer!). Sakke also informed that so far his surroundings had been quiet. 

After a half an hour's wait I received a message from Heikki: he had also shot one deer. An adult female was his definition. Couple of times I looked at the deer still lying quietly in the fringes of the woods. Ok, everything fine. Let's see what will come. And it surely did. Only after twenty minutes again I spotted movements in the woods. This time without no hurry I waited until all the herd was there: three deer around the feed and later on one significantly smaller also approached. Now, when four animals were visible, it was easy to see that the last that came was a fawn. As two fawns are equal to one adult I decided that the fawn will be my second  target. It felt almost too easy: I lifted the rifle, had a long time for aiming, waited untill the fawn stood directly in a 90 degree side angle and - bang! The fawn jumped three metres up, took two leaps to the left and fell down. Later it turned out that the shot was perfect, straight through the heart.

What an evening - fist time and two deer! As a reply to my message Sakke also informed that he had shot one - so the hunting was over. I gathered my belongings and stepped out into the blue dusk. To help the work of our hosts I dragged the first deer out of the woods. Actually it was not so small!

Boar hunting in southern Estonia

First evening stalk

Tallink's fast ferry across the Gulf of Finland took four eager hunters (Kari, Vesa, Petri and myself) to Tallinn in the beginning of January 2011. From Tallinn we travelled by Kari's marvellous four wheel driven Cadillac to Rõuge village some 20 km south-west of the city of Võru. Weather was not promising: -4 C and heavy snowstorm. But without problems we arrived to Rõuge guesthouse around six o'clock in the evening simultaneously as the snow fall ceased. After a rapid supper we were ready for the first hunting event, stalking for boars from hunting towers. After having put on all the clothes I had with me I was ready to my first boar hunting opportunity ever.

Rõuge guesthouse

My tower located in the shadow of spruces besides a field where the feed for deer and boars was set. It was about fourty metres from the tower to the feed. After my local driver had left I climbed up to the tower in an almost total darkness. Luckily I had my forehead lamp with me. After a while I was able to see the surroundings as my eyes got used to the darkness. The tower structure was not of the first quality: the sides on top were only some twenty centimeters high and it - as you can imagine - was rather difficult to find a comfortable waiting position. Anyway I tried to find the best one by leaning backwards against the side, loaded my Browning A-bolt Win .308 rifle and started waiting.

The wind was pretty strong and after a half of an hour I began to feel cold. The tower surroundings were totally silent disregarding the wind that made the spruces sigh. Sitting quitely and without a move on a cold uncomfortable tower platform made me soon realize how essential it is to dress up properly, meaning in my case that I should have had a down jacket or something warmer clothing with me. I was glad that I had taken my light sleeping bag along so I was able to wrap it around me. It helped a little. But nevertheless my first lesson learned was that it is cold to stalk in the middle of a South-Estonian wintry rural landscape.

All of a sudden three roes appeared out of shadows from the left and gambolled to have their share of the feed. I watched as they ate silently. Every now and then one of the roes lifted its head and watched to my direction. I was able to see them quite well against the snow, and especially clearly they appeared through the rifle scope. If it only had been allowed to shoot my quarry would have been sure.

After ten to fifteen minutes the roes suddenly frightened something and rushed away. I did not find out the reason for that, maybe they just heard my shivers of cold or desperate small movements by which I tried to keep me warm. Anyway during the rest of my two hour stalking nothing worth mentioning happened.

I was really happy when my driver came to pick me up at ten o'clock. I was slightly stiff out of cold but managed to climb down safely. The driver had a strong light with him and he cheked the area in left which was invisible from the tower due to the spruces. To my astonishment he said that there are fresh footprints of a big boar just some fifty meters left from the tower. The boar had frightened something and turned back to the woods. My second lesson to learn: be quiet and you must not get cold because the feel of cold leads to noisy movements for getting oneself warmer.

Later in the hot steam of an evening sauna Kari told that a herd of six wild boars had come to the feeding place ahead of his stalking tower. When we asked the reason for non-firing he explained that no proper shooting angle was available. What a gentleman! 

Lucky day

Saturday dawned with a promise; no snowfall and temperature around minus two centigrade. After - in those circumstances - a decent breakfast we headed  to the meeting place some ten kilometres south-west where the day's hunting was to be planned.  Around fifteen local men were gathered to the meeting place to discuss and agree the place and arrangements of the day's hunting. After around fifteen to twenty minutes we were told to get into our car and follow the leading car. We drove only about ten minutes untill we reached our destination. There we were instructed to be silent as left along a narrow forest road a  hundred metres or so in between each of us. My location  looked well as a small cutting clearing happened to be ahead of me. I stepped a couple of meters out of the road because the order was to shoot only when boars have crossed the stand line i.e the idea is to shoot only backwards. Clever.

After an half an hours wait I could well hear the local beaters as they moved in the woods and got closer. But unfortunately nothing else than a pair of ravens caught my eyes during the entire stand of one and a half an hour. The boars must have chosen another route than our stand line when escaping the beaters as no gunshot was to be heard.

Kari, Vesa and Petri posing with boars shot by other hunters on Sunday

Next stand was arranged to cover three sides of promising thicket. Local men had spotted fresh boar footprints that lead into the thicket. My place was the outermost and again besides a narrow forestry road. The location did not look very good because of the thick vegetation ahead and besides of me. But anyway again I stepped two meters off the road and this time on top of a low snowpile. The other guys stood left of me and I could just see my first neighbour. I have to admit that the waiting was a little bit boring because for one hour I could not hear or see anything else but quiet forest and a flock of small birds - great tits (believe or not: great tit is a bird!). Also the being quiet and standing still was pretty heavy for my back.

But all that agony was suddenly swept away! Just by accident I happened to look to the right in exact time to notice that a grown up boar was trying to reach the forestry road through thick snow some sixty meters to the right. It was amazing that nothing could be heard though such a big animal was struggling its way through thick snow. I was almost paralyzed for a moment and just watched as the boar reached the road, stopped for a moment and shaked its fur so close to me. After a moments hesitation the amazing animal started to run straight to my direction!

I fired the first shot when the boar was just 30 meters away. The beast fell down but tried immediately to stand up again. I noticed at once that my shot had been too low, the bullet had broken the boar's right front leg and rear left leg! As the wounded  animal was moving aroung in its place I fired again. I could well see the hit. But still the boar was cabable of crossing the road to my side. It turned its back towards me as still trying to escape. A lot of blood was bleeding but still the boar tugged itself away from me. I could not shoot because of the position of the wounded beast. For a moment I thought what to do. This was my first boar hunting ever and I remembered that a wounded boar can be dangerous. After a brief hesitation I started to run towards it. As I was only fifteen meters away the boar stopped and turned its side towards me and rose its head. Now it was an easy shot and the boar fell down dead.

What a beast!

Author with his catch (the pig was shot by a fellow hunter)