Seal Shooting. 
Or the thousands of sportsmen who have had 
experience in shooting all the varieties of our 
waterfowl, upland game birds and animals, it 
remains to a very few indeed to have engaged 
in the occupation (for it can scarcely be classed 
as a sport) of seal shooting. The simple hunt¬ 
ing and killing of the animals does not appeal 
to the average sportsman as coming within the 
lines of true sportsmanship. The seal is pur¬ 
sued for his extremely valuable fur. Devoid 
of any sentiment, it is the whole object to secure 
as many pelts as possible while the season is on. 
Though killing the seal may not be a sports¬ 
man’s idea of real sport, it nevertheless requires 
courage to face the many dangers attending it, 
for it is full of peril and hardship and draws 
those to its ranks who can endure the work for 
the reward. The seal shooter should be hardy, 
brave, quick to discover and act—taking advan¬ 
tage of all conditions—keeping his head under 
all circumstances, setting an example of cool¬ 
ness and cheerfulness for his boat crew of two 
men. He must understand sailing by compass, 
and from experience know about how fast his 
boat is going, whether under sail or by the oars, 
thus enabling him to calculate with some degree 
of certainty in thick weather his location in re¬ 
lation to that of the schooner. 
On starting out in the morning for the day’s 
shooting, the weather may be fine enough and 
thus continue all day, enabling the shooters to 
keep track of the schooner. She may be hull 
down at times to the boat crews scattered over 
the sea. Usually in good weather the shooter 
is kept in plain sight, a few miles away, making 
it easy to return to her before nightfall. If, 
however, fog or snow comes on, shutting out 
a vision of the sea, then the seal shooter must 
hunt for the schooner if it is getting rather late 
in the afternoon. If early in the day, under 
like conditions of weather, and the seals are in 
numbers sufficient to continue shooting, the boats 
remain out until the hour warns them to go to 
the schooner. All times in thick weather the 
signal gun on the schooner is fired to give direc¬ 
tion to the boats. Often this signal is continued 
far into the night to assist belated boats in get¬ 
ting home. It not infrequently occurs when 
there is a high sea running and the wind is blow¬ 
ing a gale, those boats to the windward of the 
schooner cannot hear the signal gun. They 
know, however, that the signal is being fired 
and endeavor to drop to leeward of it and thus 
catch the sound and direction. 
If on starting out in the morning the weather 
looks changeable and liable to be bad, the 
shooter will sail or row by compass—say to the 
west for a half hour or more—and endeavor 
to remain in that locality and distance all day, 
so that in event of fog or snow he will be rea¬ 
sonably sure of finding the schooner somewhere 
northeast of his position and the signal gun to 
assist him. 
The seal shooter and his men must face all 
kinds of weather, from the finest sunlit sea, 
when the water is azure, gently heaving, and the 
heads of seals dot the surface—an ideal day 
for shooting, and precious few such days—to 
the full gale, the high sea, fog, thick snow, rain, 
hail and bitter cold; all are liable to overtake 
a boat’s crew at any hour. Many a boat’s crew 
have left the schooner full of hope and animal 
spirits, the wind and weather all conspiring to 
a good day’s shooting and never returned. 
The average sealing schooner is of a tonnage 
of about 120, length over all about 135ft.; beam, 
30ft.; depth, 15ft.; two masts, a good big 
schooner, a fast sailer, a type of schooner known 
as a Newfoundland bank fisherman. 
These vessels carried six or seven crack shots 
who are treated by the captain and mates as 
equals on shipboard. They lived and messed 
in the after cabin, and sometimes, where the 
schooner was built for the accommodation, each 
shooter had his private stateroom. In the fore¬ 
castle was housed the crew numbering enough 
men to man all the shooters’ boats at one time 
with two men each and enough additional men 
remaining to assist the captain and mates in 
working the ship. 
A shooter’s boat was about 20ft. to 22ft. in 
length, Sj^ft. to 10ft. beam, of the double ended 
whaleboat pattern, good sea boats, the best for 
the purpose. The shooter sat in the bow keep¬ 
ing a sharp lookout, often using glasses to dis¬ 
cover the seals. The schooner was fitted out 
with the best of everything in the way of stores 
in great variety and quantity. There was corned 
beef, salt pork, beans, peas, potatoes, canned 
vegetables and fruits of all kinds; in fact, the 
food in variety and quantity was far above that 
furnished to officers and men on the merchant 
sailing vessels. A good supply of coal was car¬ 
ried, and several tons of rock salt for salting the 
skins. Water was carried in steel tanks in the 
hold of the vessel. 
The clothes worn by all hands consisted of 
extra heavy fine woolen underwear, heavy 
flannel shirt and jacket, oil skins, jacket and 
trousers, fur coats, heavy fur-covered mocca¬ 
sins, Arctic socks, fur caps and mittens. 
Of the time I am writing, some twelve years 
ago, the average catch a voyage of fur seal was 
2,500 to 3,000 skins—usually a few polar and 
brown bear skins, also sea lions, walrus and fox. 
The price paid the shooter for skins was from 
$2 to $6. The shooters were supplied with every¬ 
thing including arms and ammunition, the guns 
being of the best. The armament for each 
shooter consisted of two ten-gauge guns, one 
twelve-gauge and one four-gauge single barrel. 
This big gun was charged with 12 drams good, 
very coarse-grained black powder and 38 No. 1 
buckshot. This big gun was used when a num¬ 
ber of the seals were bunched. I get all my in¬ 
formation from Jack Fanning, an experienced 
seal shooter, who says, referring to the four- 
gauge : “When we sighted a bunch of seal my 
oarsman would get me within range and I would 
use the heavy gun on the bunch, kill some and 
stun others. Then I would use my .38 caliber 
rifle, and kill the stunned and wounded seals. 
Under such conditions of shooting a dozen or 
more seals would be bagged. It required a good eye 
and much experience to kill the animals singly 
from a moving boat in a rough sea, and often 
with a poor light more were killed singly than 
otherwise. Sometimes in a fog, when you can¬ 
not distinguish objects twenty feet from the 
boat, seals would suddenly pop up so near the 
boat that you could almost touch them. Under 
these conditions we would keep very quiet and 
watchful, and if a head appeared we would gen¬ 
erally get it, using the twelve-gauge.” 
Mr. Fanning says there are two great families 
of seals to be found in the North Pacific, the 
Bering sea being a rendezvous for all of them. 
The American seal inhabits the Pribilof? Island 
in the eastern end of Bering Sea. Shooting is 
also to be had on the coasts of Japan and 
Siberia. 
During Mr. Fanning’s seal shooting engage¬ 
ments he made four trips, and it may be im¬ 
agined he met with adventures during that time 
that are of great interest and worth recount¬ 
ing. It was his third voyage. The schooner 
was cruising in the Bering Sea and had put in 
near the shore to get a supply of water and give 
the shooters an opportunity to kill some animal 
for fresh meat. Mr. Fanning and the captain’s 
brother started together. The landing was made 
from small boats in the harbor of Portage Bay, 
Alaska. The two hunters kept close together, 
knowing they were very likely to meet danger¬ 
ous game, particularly the Alaskan grizzly bear, 
this species being numerous and ugly. In fol¬ 
lowing a wounded deer, Fanning became sepa¬ 
rated from his companion. Securing the deer, he 
started back to find his companion and to get 
his assistance in bringing the deer to the boat. 
He had gone but a short distance when a grizzly 
broke cover one hundred yards away and faced 
the hunter. Jack’s brain worked fast; he knew 
the most dangerous game was before him, and 
there might be more bears to deal with. It 
would be best to dispose of this one quickly 
and be ready for others. He withheld his fire, 
not particularly desiring the fight, but the in¬ 
stant the brute started his way he opened on 
him with a .45-90 rifle using four shots. The 
rifle was then empty. The bear was coming 
fast and it was only after four shots from his 
.44 caliber revolver that the bear fell dead ten 
feet from where Jack stood. All the shots had 
taken effect. 
The captain’s brother, guided by the rapid 
fire, soon found Jack, and they made their way 
back to the landing to get assistance to bring 
out two deer and skin the bear. 
It was on this same voyage that Fanning and 
his two boatmen faced death and fought him 
off. It was a fair day for shooting to begin 
with. Fanning and his two men, who, by the 
way, were very devoted to him, left the schooner 
about 9 o’clock and steered south by west for 
three-quarters of an hour or so, picking up a 
few pelts. Presently they found a small school 
of seals well scattered over the sea. This kept 
the boat busy for a time. After skinning the 
