Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Northern BC Moose Hunting

I'm a Canadian. This forum is supposed to be about Canadian Hunting & Shooting. Let's get it back on track. You wanna gripe and complain about Canadianism, politics, personal views, news events...take it somewhere else please (OK, I'll get off my soapbox now)

Here in northern BC, last winter was one of the worst recorded in the last 50 years. A lot of popular moose hunting areas had populations decimated due to the extreme cold & deep snow, winter ticks, late spring and high wolf and black bear numbers. There's been a lot of unsuccessful hunters this fall. However, it's not all doom & gloom. The moose didn't all die off contrary to what some would have you believe. As usual, one of my co-workers went out the first week of October during the prime calling time for moose. He uses a M70 .300 WinMag w/ 200gr Accubond handloads. They went 3 for 3 on good bulls. On the first day, one of the boys popped a young tri-palm (3 points on brow) and by the end of the week, they were done with 2 more bulls with racks in the 50" spread range. All three were called in. My buddy personally saw 31 moose and called in 14 bulls in the 6 days they hunted. They only had one close call with a grizzly sow and cubs, but that just adds to the spice around here. In this area, legal bulls have to be either no more than 2 points on one side (spike-fork), at least 3 points on one brow palm (tri-palm) or at least 10 points on one antler. So it can be a bit frustrating when you have a large bull come in only to have to turn him down because he doesn't meet the legal requirements for one reason or other.
Anyway, just wanted to try and get this Canada forum back to hunting & shooting so thought I'd post up. Thanks for listening.

I agree with getting back on topic. We have similar celebrations and frustations while hunting moose in Saskatchewan. Winter ticks have been a real concern. Last spring my buddy found six dead moose on our property, (only 1500 acres adjoining the Porcupine provincial forest ). Moose have really been hit hard by ticks in Sask. On top of that, we also have a lot of wolf predation. But, in an area just west of us, my brother was fortunate to draw a tag for the Greenwater park zone. We saw nine moose while scoutinng on the Sunday before the season opener. Another seven moose Monday morning. More than any other hunt in my life. It was a real fun hunt, even if it was all over by Monday night.
Nice to hear you can still enjoy a good calling season in BC. Congratulation to your co-worker on a successful hunt! And good to know there are still some grizzlies to spice it up a notch too!

I was not aware that Rick had made you a moderator, most of us who participate here regularly seem to enjoy a wide-ranging array of topics. Who are you to pop in and tell us to go somewhere else, maybe you should contribute something before telling the others here what we must do, eh?

Sounds like you're having a good time too, Castnblast. Ya, the bears are doing too well around these parts.

kutenay, where did that come from? I merely suggested we get back on track with this being a hunting & shooting forum. You don't consider updating the members with northern BC moose hunting "contributing"? kutenay, enlighten us with your expertise about...(hoo boy)"back in 1967 when I was a junior woodchuck forestry lookout, I carried one of my several pre-64 M70's I own in .375 H&H...blah, blah" rather than what your pompus opinions on Ed Stelmach's royalty proposals will be, please. It's so much more entertaining and relevant here at the 'fire.

I simply pointed out that, if you bothered to check the origin of many if not most of the threads here, you would see that MOST of the regular posters initiate a variety of topics and those interested can or cannot post on each as they see fit.

I object to the tone of your admonition as I don't like any type of restrictions on freedom of speech; it seems to me that you seldom come here and NOW are going to TELL we regulars what we can discuss here??? Seems kinda weird to me.

Don't like someone's posts/opinions, well, don't READ them, simple, really, eh?

Oh trust me, I'm here more than you'll ever know. Perhaps you should consider taking your own advise. If you don't like this post, don't read it. Now run along and play nicely.

Thanks for the update on ticks.....we have our fingers crossed here in Alaska as we haven't seen any winter ticks yet....Yukon Territory has some problems West of Whitehorse and I'm hoping they don't spread to Alaska.

Vern,

I was with our moose biologist in a meeting a few weeks ago and he assured us that the tick problem is not really significant, at all. The concern is that if our winters get much warmer, then we could have a real problem.

Ted

That's good to know Ted....Thank you!....I recently read the magazine of YF&GA and there was an article on it and I think it pertained mostly to the elk herd.....ADF&G is tuned into just the same....Vern

I took a nice spike bull this fall in the Pink Mountain area. He was a very healthy animal and is delicious.

From what I could see the moose were doing fine up there.