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)