Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Moose Hunting BC vs NF

Looking at booking a 2024 Moose hunt and am looking for input from anybody thats hunted New Foundland or British Columbia.
I have an outfitter in British Columbia that I've worked with before, but the prices are much nicer in New Foundland.

What are your experiences?

Are the Moose sizes/numbers worth the increased price?

NFLD has a denser more moose per square mile than pretty much anywhere in North America. Hunt cost probably cheaper there also. Your average moose are generally smaller in NFLD though the odd trophy size one turns up now and then.

Chance615;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the week behaved and this finds you well.

As my cyber friend bushrat indicated from all reports the moose population is more dense in Newfoundland.

Depending upon where in BC your outfitter is, the bulls could well be bigger here in BC, though down south here it seems many call our local moose Shiras. Regardless of the subspecies, the southern BC moose are smaller than the northern BC moose.

As I've never been to Newfoundland I can't comment intelligently on the scenery.

What I can say after kicking around BC for 40 odd years, there's very little of it that isn't reasonably picturesque at minimum and jaw dropping gorgeous in some spots.

It depends on what you're looking for in the hunt honestly and there's no wrong answer to that, what you expect or better said hope for in the hunt is in your court.

Hope that made sense and was useful.

Good luck on your hunts this fall and all the best planning your hunt up here, whichever side of the country you end up on.

Dwayne

I hunted moose and woodland caribou near Gander, Newfoundland in 2019.

The 3 bull moose that I saw in my outfitter's hunting unit were all much smaller than the 2 Shiras moose that I shot here in Montana, so I passed on them. We didn't see any caribou.

The feedback I was looking for. I know I may only get up to hunt moose once in my life, so trying to make the best of it.

First Off, Newfys are more fun then BCers. Along the Alaska panhandle, on the BC side , guys at work took moose that were over 200# a quarter.That's huge. When he first saw it, he wondered what a sheet of plywood was doing out there. But that was a while back. Moose numbers in BC have dropped.

It's Newfoundland .... Just sayin'

I was on NFLD 3 years ago moose hunting during covid. The moose are smaller but the hunting was great. We took 7 moose with only 5 hunters in camp. One of the guides shot his when we were all done and the camp cook shot one as well right in front of the camp. I'd go back there in a heartbeat. The outfitter liked to say... "We offer moose hunts, not trophy hunts."

Have hunted moose in our area around a place called 70 mile, it is in the Caribou.

And have hunted up the Alaska Hwy on the BC side from Ft. St. John to an area called Trutch
Pulled five moose one time, three per trip average, biggest was 60”.

We hunted this year, first week of October. I took a cow, my son and his buddy small bulls and bro in law a 12 pointer. I saw moose every day, small bulls and a big cow. I shot a cow Thursday evening because weather was supposed to get nasty on Friday - Sunday. Didn’t happen but we were delayed 3 days due to high winds and waves. The new group at the camp shot 5 bulls and one caribou. Some of those bulls our group got a glimpse but they were with cows. They serviced one group and found copper and lead the following week!!!

Here's pic of a nice stag I saw on NL. No tag but did get a small bull about 30min after taking that pic.

I hunted NF once before.
My hunt was about 6 hours long.
I killed the first Bull I saw, which I was more than happy with.
While we were getting it out, I saw one as big or bigger.
The guide did film the hunt which was an unexpected plus.
The guide did get popular in NF and AK for Moose.
His name is Deon Dicks.

Not sure if this has been mentioned......there are no Wolves in NF, it would seem a success rate of 100% in NF, and although high in BC, I doubt you are going to see the same amount of Moose as what the guys who have hunted NF do.
I hear reports of wanting to introduce Wolves to NF, but that would be retarded.

Rule of thumb says a hindquarter weighs 10% of live weight. No moose ever weighed close to 2000 pounds on a scale. Yukon-Charlie River moose are usually considered the largest and IIRC they peaked under 1800. ADF&G had a tripod and ran to gunshots to get examples to weigh. At least one group of captive moose have also been weighed regularly.

Sitka deer;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that the weather up in your section of the world is seasonally appropriate and something you all can live with and that you're well.

We did a quick run up on the mountain behind the house yesterday for the opener of our 15 day bull season here where we're restricted to bulls with no more than 2 points on one side.

It's always a bit of a gamble going into our favorite spots as they might be punching in new logging roads or doing active logging, which was exactly what we ran into at first light, so plan B and the secondary spots were then checked out. We burned a bunch of diesel and saw some gorgeous country along with 3 cows, one calf and too many wolf tracks.

Anyways Sitka, while I am in no way an expert on anything, the hanging carcass weight of our immature bulls down here can sometimes be 400lb and some mature bulls - LEH only - are supposed to approach 600lb according to a couple fellows we know who cut meat.

Before leaving our local moose, there is, in my experience anyways Sitka, absolutely no consensus as to where the Shiras subspecies start and end in our part of BC. So whether ours are Canada or Shiras or a hybrid of the two, if there is actually any difference that is - is hotly debated subject.

One of the time honored things to do here in BC seems to be the practice of "Quartering" the moose, sometimes with an ax or handsaw, but more often than not a chainsaw with veg oil in the thing - or no bar oil.

The ones I've seen are split down the middle of the back first, then they'll cut the half in half again, so a few ribs in from the back.

Also it seems to vary from moose camp to moose camp as to where to split that half. I'd think that a few beers into the discussion it might get downright rowdy in some instances as there's been some really adamant opinions expressed to me over the years.....

Being a former horse and backpack deer hunter, the one bull I took apart I did it gutless first and then I want to say it was 5 pieces, no saw being used.

Oh on the saw topic, I've heard that the new battery operated reciprocating saws with the right blade are now quite popular, but of course that means the batteries have to function in the temps one is hunting at too.

My recip saw is still old school plug in, so unless I find current bushes, it has to stay at home.

A buddy of ours in Whitehorse mentioned that they used to and still might do a "heaviest moose in the Yukon" contest so maybe some of our Yukon members can give information from that?

The photos of the northern bulls from the Yukon and up in Atlin area of BC look way bigger than anything we'll ever lay eyes on down here, but how much bigger is the question.

All the best and good hunting Sitka.

Dwayne

There are no wolves but there are black bears. Not sure what effect they would have on young moose predation.

SuperCub;
Good morning my cyber friend, I hope that you're all warm, well and dry on this second day of November.

Of course they'd need to do a study on calf predation to see what's going on in specific areas, here in our part of south central BC, black bears have turned out to be the number one cause of mule deer mortality in the first year.

In an area where we've got bobcats, cougars, coyotes and wolves in reasonable abundance with the occasional grizzly tossed in to spice up the mix, I'd opine that's actually saying something.

Nothing good about black bears in my view.

Where I lived for awhile in east central Saskatchewan back in the mid 70's, the bios said that black bears accounted for 30% of the moose calf mortality.

Introducing wolves would be nothing short of completely bonkers in my view, but then again as one bio said of our views "they're only anecdotal" so he discounted them out of hand.

Can't be listening to ranchers, loggers or hunters when you've spent all that money getting a degree now can we?

I will say this however, at least two of our new young local biologists hunt and seem to actually give a proverbial hoot, which pleases my semi-old heart to no end.

Anyways sir, just a few thoughts from the sodden southern Interior and all that.

All the best and good hunting.

Dwayne

Good morning Dwayne ..... I do recall watching a program about BB predation on the moose calves quite a few yrs ago and the numbers lost were surprising. There is certainly no shortage of moose on NL.

I don't think that the good folks on NL would not appreciate the introduction of wolves there and would resist by all means to see them gone.

Can anyone who’s hunted both provinces please comment on terrain differences? I’ve heard tell of soft ground / bogs in NF. I dealt with no such problems in the East Kutenays in 2010.

And as Dwayne mentioned, one can’t be sure what kind of moose one will harvest in BC. I was sold a Shiras Moose hunt, but I was later (sternly) corrected here that I couldn’t possibly shoot a Shiras North of the 49th Parallel.

Maybe I harvested a hermaphrodite. If so, ‘twas a delicious hermaphrodite.

FC

Dwayne
Top of the day to you, Sir! We are again above freezing this AM, without measurable snow except for the very peaks.

Interesting about hunters cutting whole quarters that way. Seems a good way to create hernias and slipped disc's.

All the best back at you!

Studies here showed bears to be far more effective at killing calves than wolves. Both flavors got their share.

The caribou abandoned where we hunt a couple winters ago. Horrible mismanagement on the part of ADF&G not keeping the numbers down.

It seems the much smaller number of wolves remaining, and more likely the lack of caribou to distract them, the bears have done a stellar job of killing moose calves. We saw one moose calf this fall. We also saw more bears than bull moose.

Hi Chance615, you may want to look into Alberta and Saskatchewan as well, we do have some pretty big moose here in Alberta, and it would most likely cost less for a guided hunt here in Alberta, than in BC.

In Canada BC means Bring Cash, everything costs more in BC!

Cheers ~

And they expect big tips as well in B.C....often for doing a mediocre job.

Yup, and even though they are Canadian, if you gave them a cash tip in Canadian funds, they would spit on you lol.

Bears sure do kill calves and fawns. I just had this discussion with a friend, if you only kill boars (black) you haven't done anything to control the population of Bears, you have made it worse by killing only boars, who would otherwise do some control of their own.

I think Wolves are pretty efficiant at killing Calves too, but may hunt differently, I know Bears will simply hang out in a Calving/Fawning area and just kill stuff. That was happening locally, then someone ended it with a gunshot, but before the slaughter ended that Bear probably killed a dozen Fawns.

My guide said that the Coyotes came over on a chunk of ice.
He said a game warden could have stopped them but chose not to.
He decided that it was a normal progression of life and let them come to the island.
This was 2007 when I was there.
Last time I talked to the guide he said they were everywhere now.

The Caribou herd are the ones that got the short end of the stick on that deal.

This is just hear say from the guild, don't know how correct the story is.