We have all this from Scandinavian hunting entrepreneur Hakan Gyllbring. He tells us hunts oriented toward the international market are available in southern Finland, about an hour's drive west of Helsinki. This is in the inner archipelago where the terrain goes from forested mountains to arable bottoms and sea coast. Hunting is done on private property, he says, either from stands or by stalking with a dog, much the way moose hunts are done in that part of the world. Gyllbring says it is not a physically demanding hunt, but that it does require fast, short-range shooting skills.
In 2005, resident hunters killed 21,000 whitetail deer in Finland. So, it is a species sought after by locals. Gyllbring says that the landowners who control the hunts he knows about manage their properties closely. He says hunting success has run 100 percent and that they have good quality trophies. That said, you should know that European whitetails, much like moose in that part of the world, do not typically develop the monstrous antlers North American hunters dream of when they take to the field. So, this hunt is not for the single-minded trophy hunter, but rather for the international hunter interested in hunting a different destination and collecting a free-ranging whitetail in a place he may never have considered.
According to the SCI Record Book, some nice whitetails have been taken in Finland over the years, notably a 13-pointer taken in 1966 that measured 29 1/8........(continued)
