Up North Hunting - caliber choices by locals VS caliber choices by guided hunters

fat tony

fat tony

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Across the arctic and sub arctic, high velocity small bores like the .22-250 reign supreme. But there's a huge difference between the needs, to say nothing of the life experience, of a subsistence hunter/trapper and that of the sport hunter, and its a mistake for the novice sport hunter to attempt to emulate the cartridge choice of the subsistence hunter. Then there are the legality issues of the jurisdictions that impose minimum cartridge restrictions for use on big game. Other than polar bear, the majority of game hunted by the Inuit tends to be smaller than the game encountered farther south. A better idea is for the novice to choose a cartridge that is known to produce clean humane kills on the big game hunted for sport, rather then having some idea that a .22 Hornet is the ultimate big game cartridge because the Inuit shoot seals, white foxes, and 100 pound caribou with it.
 
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Of course a 'lower 48' hunter will need to think up a reason other than: "whale hunting" to obtain a .375 H&H. :)

Nowhere in the thread did it say that .22 Hornet is currently popular anywhere up north for hunting, but then again that is just a random sampling of opinions. I certainly don't know for sure what is 'most popular' in 'the north' as that is a vast area with lots of different regions. I have never been up there, like a lot of the rest of us. I just found it interesting and thought others would too.

What sorts of calibers other than .22/250 do you regularly see in use, Boomer? Thanks for your info. :)
 
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fat tony said:
Of course a 'lower 48' hunter will need to think up a reason other than: "whale hunting" to obtain a .375 H&H. :)

Nowhere in the thread did it say that .22 Hornet is currently popular anywhere up north for hunting, but then again that is just a random sampling of opinions. I certainly don't know for sure what is 'most popular' in 'the north' as that is a vast area with lots of different regions. I have never been up there, like a lot of the rest of us. I just found it interesting and thought others would too.

What sorts of calibers other than .22/250 do you regularly see in use, Boomer? Thanks for your info. :)
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The .222 and .223 are popular, as is the .243. I know of one fellow in Coral Harbor who liked the .25/06, but I haven't talked to him in years and don't know if he still has it or can get ammo for it. Pounder sold a .458 to someone up that way as well for whales, but I think the guy had bowheads in mind, not belugas. usually folks up there consider .30 caliber rifles to be too much of a good thing, although there is that guy in Rankin with an M-1A, haven't seen any posts from him a while though.
 
Some time ago, I posted an article on a fairly recent attempt at bringing back whale hunting for one village somewhere up in the Canadian Arctic. According to that article, not one living soul had direct knowledge of how whale hunting had been carried out. The only recollections were of a man who had once spoken to an elder who did it back around 1975.

These guys had a .270 Winchester and some sort of spadroon type harpoon. One fellow kept pounding .270 rounds into the hapless creature (might have been a bowhead), and the other fellow was supposed to find the heart of the creature with the spadroon & that would be the 'killshot' so to speak.

In any case, in the more modern hunt (post 1975), the whale went deep & the carcass went anaerobic down there after it died. The remains washed up some time later & was pretty vile apparently.

Hopefully the art is being regained.
 
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Part of what makes high velolcity, small caliber rifles acceptable for a portion of sustenance hunters in the north is the style of hunting that they often practice. When you can run down your caribou with a snowmobile until it can barely walk, and then shoot it in the head from five paces, you don't need a medium magnum.
 
I figured small calibers were predominantly used up north is because everything has to be flown in. If it's flown in, then weight is a definite factor when it comes down to pricing. Figured they were used because you can get more bang for your buck. Literally.
 
Northman999 said:
Part of what makes high velolcity, small caliber rifles acceptable for a portion of sustenance hunters in the north is the style of hunting that they often practice. When you can run down your caribou with a snowmobile until it can barely walk, and then shoot it in the head from five paces, you don't need a medium magnum.
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Is running down Caribou & coup de grace the usual way to subsistence hunt up north? Just curious, as it sort of is analagous to the old school trapper way of checking traps, & coup de gras if the trap was occupied.
 
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Boomer said:
Across the arctic and sub arctic, high velocity small bores like the .22-250 reign supreme. But there's a huge difference between the needs, to say nothing of the life experience, of a subsistence hunter/trapper and that of the sport hunter, and its a mistake for the novice sport hunter to attempt to emulate the cartridge choice of the subsistence hunter. Then there are the legality issues of the jurisdictions that impose minimum cartridge restrictions for use on big game. Other than polar bear, the majority of game hunted by the Inuit tends to be smaller than the game encountered farther south. A better idea is for the novice to choose a cartridge that is known to produce clean humane kills on the big game hunted for sport, rather then having some idea that a .22 Hornet is the ultimate big game cartridge because the Inuit shoot seals, white foxes, and 100 pound caribou with it.
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Well put.:)
Then of course there's folks that go full bore on the opposite side of the spectrum, as in using African class cartridges loaded to factory levels on moose, bear, bison and such. Problems arise when the load has too much power for the hunter to get back on target with in a tight spot, let alone the shooter's anticipation of the shot.

Know your gun, your load and your limitations to help ensure success. Above all.... PRACTICE.
 
I have a nephew who spent a career in the RCMP and in about the 1960s he spent considerable time in the eastern Arctic. At that time the Canadian government shipped cases of CIL Dominion brand 30-30 ammunition to the RCMP posts in the arctic and they gave it out free to the natives, for hunting.
 
fat tony said:
Is running down Caribou & coup de grace the usual way to subsistence hunt up north? Just curious, as it sort of is analagous to the old school trapper way of checking traps, & coup de gras if the trap was occupied.
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Normal for some. I talked to two different caribou hunters last year who do it this way. For people without hunting treaties it's illegal, but for others it's a pretty normal way to get meat.
 
My experience in the north (all below the treeline in northern BC and alberta) points to the .303 british as the most popular with "local" (I'm talking local for several 1000 years here if you catch my drift) hunters.

I know lots of First Nation's hunters on the island and in the lower mainland who strongly favour .22 center and rim fire rifles for deer hunting. Close range and head shots are the order of the day for these guys. Can't paint a whole group of people with one brush though, I was once laughed at by a guy up north for saying I would buy a .270 bolt if I got a caribou tag, his suggestion: an 8mm
 
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I lived on worked in the NWT and the rifles I saw for moose and caribou were 30-30 (long barrels) 270, 30-06. I witnessed a 65 year old man hit 3 running caribou that were at about 300 yards out on a frozen lake. After that he sat down and said that that was the only rifle he had ever owned.
 
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