“Taking your 375 Ruger FTW/SAAM?” Questioned Doug Prichard after I had put three Hornady 300gr DGX bullets into an extremely tight group at 200 yards.

I smiled, “Yeah, you know me. I don’t think there’s such a thing as being over-gunned, even when hunting roe deer that weight hardly ever more than 60 or 70 pounds intact!” The rifle was one with which I was extremely familiar. Too, once we completed the roe deer hunt, we would be traveling to another hunt.

The flight to Copenhagen from San Antonio had been an easy one, compared to some of the others I had experienced flying over the Atlantic. We had been met at the airport by Stefan Bengtssen, quickly cleared customs and were on our way to an ancient home where we would be spending the next few days hunting Swedish roe deer.

“Crayfish? Did I hear you right?” Questioned Tim Fallon, “You mean those things that look like little lobsters?” Stefan Bengtssen smiled and nodded. “Did you just say there have been wars fought over crawfishing rights?” Again, Stefan nodded. With that Tim looked my way, “Did you know they had crayfish in Sweden?”

“All new to me!” I replied, “But when in Sweden, do as the Swedes. I’m in, if we’re setting traps for them. Sounds interesting! I gotta feeling they’ll be delicious.”

“Grab your rifles, we will make certain they are still sighted-in. From the rifle range we will go set crayfish traps in the farm’s ponds.” Instructed Stefan our outfitter, who along with his wife Sofia, both also professional wildlife biologists, own and operate Scandinavian Pro Hunters. We had met both at the annual DSC Convention . Patty Curnette with The Global Sportsman had introduced us when we inquired of her about hunting roe deer in Sweden and reindeer in Norway. While at the DSC event we visited with a couple of Scandinavian Pro Hunters’ past clients. Before leaving Dallas, we had booked a roe deer followed by a reindeer hunt.

It took but one shot to confirm my Ruger FTW/SAAM 375 Ruger, topped with a Trijicon AccuPoint and shooting Hornady 300gr DGX cartridges was still dead-on. Tomorrow morning, we would hunt. This evening before doing a bit of scouting we would set crayfish traps, which were baited with dry dog food.

A short time later, at the farm pond, we baited and set 32 small box-like crayfish traps, where a crayfish could crawl into, but not out of. Traps set, we spent the last hour of daylight glassing crop fields and forest edges for roe deer. We spotted several roe deer including some most interesting bucks.

Following a delicious, well before dawn breakfast, I crawled into a vehicle with Sofia, while Stefan squired Bob and Celia Scott, fellow DSC members, in his vehicle. Our first effort of the morning was to find an extremely massive buck for Bob, one Stefan and Sofia had been watching for a while.

Suffice to say, finding and rendering said massively antlered buck to bag was not easy and required several albeit fun stalks and hunts.

With Bob’s buck in the salt, I started seriously hunting, looking for an old mature buck with the typical three points per side. In the process we looked over numerous bucks, including some chasing does, some tending does and single bucks on the prowl. One particular buck, with long spikes, we found was with a “velvet horn”, a deer which had not shed velvet from its antlers, known locally as a “perruche”. What we would call a “cactus-buck” or stag. Such deer are highly prized by European hunters. I have to admit I was tempted, but also knew Stefan had a client who particularly wanted such a buck, so I passed the deer. Interesting when several weeks later after much hunting, Stefan’s client took the velvet antlered “buck”. It turned out to be a fully functioning doe, making it even rarer and more prized by the European hunter.

Later in the hunt Stefan and I watched a nicely antlered mature buck bed on the back side of a transmission tower in a grain field bordering the bay which separates Sweden from Denmark. No doubt he was a gold medal class buck with long beams, long points, massive and darkly stained antlers.

We stalked to within 200 yards, to the transmission tower nearest to the tower he was bedded behind. Tall grass around the base of the tower prevented me from getting a shot at the buck. We tried calling on a buttalo call, which normally brings roe deer running, to get him to stand up. It did not work. We tried a few other things, but the buck seemed oblivious of us. Finally, while I stayed where I was seated next to the tower, Stefan started walking to the roe deer. Only then did he get up and when he did, he ran. When he slowed to a walk, I shot. At the shot he ran. I tracked him through the scope. At 400 yards the buck stopped. I pulled the trigger and he dropped. Thankfully I had spent considerable time shooting at distances near and far at the FTW Ranch’s SAAM ranges.

My buck was absolutely handsome and I was truly thrilled. I dearly love hunting roe deer! The small deer, rather like our whitetail in terms of status and distribution throughout Europe, has long fascinated me. I have hunted them in several European countries and long to hunt them again in the future.

Before the hunts’ end Tim Fallon too, shot a really nice buck in the same field where I had taken mine. Others in our hunting party, too took really nice roe deer. Next stop, Norway, a quick fishing trip then on to hunting reindeer.

But not before a fabulous meal of boiled crayfish. Over the period of several days, we caught about 50 pounds. The landowner prepared a boil for us the night before our departure. Talk about GOOD!!!

Photo credit: Larry Weishuhn Outdoors