Seal Hunting on the Gulf of the Saint Lawerence

Hello everyone, I’m still in Kawawachicamack near Schefferville, Northern Quebec. I just wanted to tell you about our fishing trip. My wife and I drove 11 km. on the old mine road to a small lake called Elizabeth Lake. We casted from shore. Too make this story short we caught 6 nice lake trout in an hour. Not big ones but good eating size from 2 to 3 pounders. We cooked up a couple for supper, they were excellent.

It was the month of July 1968 my brother-in-law JM and I decided to go out hunting seals, the Ranger seal. Why, there was a bounty on the seals, $10. for the young seal and $50. for the adult, all that you gave the Fisheries Department was the bottom jaw to get your check. Also they are great to eat. The meat is a black or dark colour but tender and excellent in your plate. The reason that they had a bounty on them in those days and not today, is that the government decided that there was to many seals and they were killing too many lobsters, crabs, sea trout and salmon.

We left Havre St. Pierre very early that morning, the weather was great, not a breeze of wind. We could see Anticosti Island 23 miles away. The island looked like it was floating it was so calm. We were travelling with a 18 foot home made speed boat with a 18 horse power Evinrude. We saw a couple of whales a lot of dolphins and a few big seals, not close enough for us to shoot. We had been travelling out at large for a good hour and then decided to go closerin shore to check the bays out.

The first big bay called Saint Lawerence Bay was the one that we entered, the tide was at it’s highest and we were close in and barley moving with the boat. JM said look in front there must have been 500 seals, big ones and small ones. They were jumping over each other because they were in shallow water. Probably having a fiest on the crabs. JM gave me the boat to drive while he got in front with the 12 gauge shot gun. I even saw a young seal pass under the boat and we were in about 6 to 10 feet of water.

All we had to do is find one and follow it and not give it time to stick his head out to breathe to long. I did just that, I could even see the “V” line just in front of it’s head as it was still under water. I was following it at about 30 feet away and all that JM was waiting for is for it to stick it’s nose out of the water. Then bang and all I saw was red I could not even see the seal. We got the long rod out with a hook at the end and hooked the seal with it to drag him aboard. This was a young seal but weighed a good 200 pounds.

JM killed 6 in a row and then it was my turn and I killed my six also. We went shore for a good cup of hot tea and a sandwich. I checked the boat out and said to JM. we have a pretty heavy load, but the weather still nice and we didn’t see any problems making it back home.

That summer we did a good 10 trips and were lucky each time, we made a bit of money to pay at least for the gas. Those hunting trips we did and pleasure we had was worth alot more than money.

I would like to talk a little about this great product eeFuel, like I said before it works, I tried it myself and was the first in Canada to try it.
Have a look at my website at http://www.fuellegacy.com/fritiz This one bottle for $30. can make you save up to $500.00 on your gas at the pump.

So long for now until the next story. Fred