Anyone ever hunt BC?

[jamesfromseattle]

Anybody ever hunt DIY in British Columbia?  Not an option for us non-residents, but am just curious to hear some stories and see some pictures.

Was looking at some of the coastal areas on Google earth and there are a ton of remote areas with logging activity.  Looks like a lot of good habitat for blacktails and bears.  There are quite a few roads but I assume they don't get much pressure.  Gotta be some big critters up there.

If I was a Canadian citizen, I think I'd either hit the backroads on the north side of Vancouver Island or take a boat and a mountain bike to some of the smaller islands to the north of Johnstone Strait.

[Calvin Rayborn]

Even the poor Canucks seem to have it rough. Was at Fort Langley last year and the "frontiersman living history interpreter" gave us a big lecture on how we could look at his Kentucky rifle but not touch because his smoke pole was now required to be a "registered firearm" in the sovereign nation of Canadaaa...He almost sounded kinda jaded and disappointed that he couldn't let folks try on the "tool of the Western pioneers" for themselves, due to all the governmental red tape 

[wadu1]

DFO Laws say you have to have a guide if you are not a BC resident. I'm married to a Canadian with family ties to hunting and fishing. One of the cousins is a hunter that know the local guide service and I was able to get him and a deputy guide license and hunt with him. My brother-in-law has now passed all his hunter Ed so the three of us could hunt together. Now being retired I cant afford the ferry rides and tags, well I could if pushed came to shoved.   I have hunted on the Island for 6 or 7 times or more and have taken 5 or 6 Blacktails (at the time you were allowed 3 tags) one being a perfect 4X4 only 1/8' difference left to right score of 101 and a fair bear 6'8".
If interested in hunting Vancouver Island check with the Guides Outfitter Association of BC (GOABC) , I know our BC members don't like GOABC but as a non-BC resident we don't have an option.
To our BC members I do understand your issues and is one of the reasons I have not hunted BC for a long while.

[Oldguy]

I hunted waterfowl in B C for several years and it wasn't a big deal like big game hunting. Canada scrapped the gun registration several years ago.

[MerriamMagician]

I would hunt BC DIY every single year if it wasn’t for the ridiculous rule that GOABC pressures onto the government that non residents have to have a guide to hunt big game. That rule drives me nuts! For years I’ve tried to figure out a way around it, and there’s simply no good options unless you have immediate family or wanna pay a guide big money.  I would think they would make a lot more revenue selling a little higher price OTC tags to non residents than royalty fees and other guide sponsored money. Or at least waive the guide requirement for neighboring country citizens. But instead they let the GOABC organization push them around. I know I’ve gone on a rant here but it really ticks me off. I would love to hunt BC but am not about to pay Guide’s huge amounts of money for animals I could successfully find and harvest on my own. Rant over.

[bigmacc]

I had a friend back in the 90,s that married a fella from B.C, they showed me pictures of some muleys they killed up there , some of the biggest body, heavy horned mossbacks I have ever seen and that is no joke! Huge deer, they showed me pictures of many bucks their family killed through the years that went 350 to 400lbs, showed me a picture of an old regressed 2 by 3 they shot that went 360 . They are still killing huge bucks up there as of the last I talked to them which was about 4 years ago.There may be some bio guys on here that could verify this (DOUBLELUNG?) but I have heard the farther north you go the bigger the body on some of the game animals such as moose, elk and mule deer , could be a wives tail , Im not talking rack or horn size, just body(but a big body can also support a big set of horns or antlers). Examples, huge(body) deer, elk, moose and bear are killed north of the border consistently, yes big animals are killed farther south also but not at the rate they are farther to the north. Another example, Mexico has some HUGE racked Mule deer but the bodys are small, Alberta, B.C etc has some huge body deer(muleys and whitetail ) . From what I,ve heard that over centuries, Mother Nature (genetics, etc) puts more weight on some animals that live in more "difficult" climates

[jamesfromseattle]

I would hunt BC DIY every single year if it wasn’t for the ridiculous rule that GOABC pressures onto the government that non residents have to have a guide to hunt big game. That rule drives me nuts! For years I’ve tried to figure out a way around it, and there’s simply no good options unless you have immediate family or wanna pay a guide big money.  I would think they would make a lot more revenue selling a little higher price OTC tags to non residents than royalty fees and other guide sponsored money. Or at least waive the guide requirement for neighboring country citizens. But instead they let the GOABC organization push them around. I know I’ve gone on a rant here but it really ticks me off. I would love to hunt BC but am not about to pay Guide’s huge amounts of money for animals I could successfully find and harvest on my own. Rant over.

No kidding. I would love to spend some non-resident tag money in BC if it were an option.

[Sitka_Blacktail]

From what I,ve heard that over centuries, Mother Nature (genetics, etc) puts more weight on some animals that live in more "difficult" climates

It's pretty simple. Body mass makes it easier to conserve warmth in cold climates.