Seal Hunting

Ade8mm

Well-Known Member
I have recently been watching a few you tube films of Seal hunting in various Arctic regions, especially those using a rifle. Very interesting.

Has anyone on Stalking Directory any first hand experience of this they can share and if so what are they like to eat?

Ade :cool:
 
The father of one of my Swedish friends was the official net minder and seal shooter for a while. He used to set up on the harbour wall and wait for seals to try rob the nets. He used to get a couple each year.
The harbour was a popular tourist destination, no one batted an eye at the man with the rifle sitting in the camp chair drinking coffee.
 
I have recently been watching a few you tube films of Seal hunting in various Arctic regions, especially those using a rifle. Very interesting.

Has anyone on Stalking Directory any first hand experience of this they can share and if so what are they like to eat?

Ade :cool:
I have killed many seals in my time. Skin is the best in the world for Jesse's and creance. The raw skin is the best to safe a 4 bore stopping gun. The fat is great for making dubbihn and the meat is good for feeding fur bearers. Oh one final, the whole carcasses when about 1 month old are great for tourists pet dogs to roll inside!
 
I can highly recommend a documentary called Angry Inuk. I believe it's on Amazon. It follows the lives of Inuit artic communities and their plight since Greenpeace tried to get seal hunting outlawed.
Thank you. Just found it , it is on you tube;

(I can't send a link to it as it wont allow)
 
This is how we do it (every year late spring). One hunter is placed on a rock and another takes the boat and drops nets ca 100 m out. Seals come from nowhere when they hear/smell salmon nets. The person on the rock has a walki takie connection with the person in the boat. The hunter shoots a 223/6,5 in a seal's head/neck and then a question of seconds or a few minutes before the seal sinks. If the boat man has not seen the shot seal the hunter on the rock will direkt him. Then a spear and rope and the seal is salvaged.
Skin is very fine and some people also use the body fat to make oil. Meat wise seal is not sought after but there are two file's which can be prepared. Whatever that is to be eaten needs to be frozen some time because of trinciella risk and similar. Best taste from seal in my opinion is salted and dried pieces of meat. This is done outdoors in late dry winter. Drying 1 month.
There is also seal hunting on flat ice but difficult to plan i.e one has to live close to moving ice floes and go out just when right circumstances appear.
 
We went through a spell of finding seal corpses washed up on the beaches here, they had all been shot with heavy loads from shotguns, never got to the bottom of who was doing it or why but happened when the mackerel were in season , to be honest you would think there would have been enough mackerel for everyone to enjoy including the seals 🙄
 
Long line fishermen on the east coast uk would shoot a seal that was robbing the lines, it was important to get the culprit as it would teach the other seals how to do it, otherwise all you would catch was Cod heads. Agnes Hailstone on Dmax channel. Alaska the frozen North, was a dab hand at shooting them from a moving boat, then harpoon them to bring them onboard. Nothing was wasted, clothing, oil, fat. meat. A friend of mine was a vegetarian, on holiday in France. She noticed Veal de mer on the menu, so she asked for some remarking that she hadn't eaten veal since she was a kid. The waiter asked after the meal what she thought, to which she replied Bloody delicious, but why Veal de mer? Because its Seal, she nearly fell out of her chair, but she told me how good it was. Surprising confession.
 
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