If you go down to the woods today...
You’d better have a red hat. Todays’s the day when they hunt the elk.
The lights go on in the Eronens’ kitchen at Viljakansaari in Puumala. Pinja and Risto Eronen are awake early. Father and daughter are taking their packed lunches from the cupboard and filling up their rucksacks. A quick check to ensure that they have everything they need: red safety vest and cap, gun, ammunition, knife. The first hunt of the autumn is beginning.The car’s headlights penetrate the morning mist as the line of cars drives along the forest track towards the hunting lodge where a whole group of members of the Viljakka hunting association is congregating.
Once game warden Pekka Huttunen has checked all the hunters’ licences, Risto, the leader of the shoot, takes over. He hands out written instructions on how to behave in the forest. He is responsible for compliance with all relevant laws and regulations while they are in the wilds. “If something happens, it’s me who’ll be in the firing line,” he jokes.
The group considers where to start the first drive of the day, and the spot being chosen, they are off, crowded in the back of flat-bed 4x4 trucks. The stakeout is reached, and the hunters set off to trudge into the forest. Pinja takes up a suitable position on an outcrop of rock and settles down to wait. For a long time, nothing is heard but the drumming of the rain and the humming of the wind.
At last there is a sound from the forest: a blast on a horn, and then another. Risto still waits calmly, as the line of beaters is still some way off. The noise begins to build up. He takes his hunting rifle off his back and pricks up his ears, watching and waiting, eyeing the forest. A shot is heard, then another. “Was that somebody bagging an elk?” he wonders.
But the shots have not brought the elk down; the hunters suspect that it is wounded but mobile. Now they need to track a wounded animal.
It is time for the hunt to continue with Vesa Pulkkinen and his dog Siru. The dog lifts its muzzle high in the air, sniffing the scents of the forest. At the edge of the forest, Vesa checks that the dog’s GPS device is working properly. Modern technology is used in hunting too: the dog’s movements can be tracked on the screen of a cell phone.
Despite all the tracking efforts, the elk is nowhere to be found. It is well into the afternoon, and the autumn dusk is beginning to settle over the forest. Only the most persistent hunters are still with the group. A cigarette is passed around. The only trace of their quarry is a hoofprint in the gravel. “That’s where it ran past us,” someone complains. “Well, I guess that about wraps it up,” says Risto Eronen stolidly. “Better luck tomorrow.”
Is everyone disappointed that they got nothing today? “Disappointed? Not one bit!” says Risto with a laugh. He is contented and already thinking about another day and another hunt.
On Sunday morning, his phone rings with a message from his daughter Pinja out in the forest: the elk is down!
BY RIITTA SUPPERI
