I'd like to know which paper to watch to read about someone using a .17 Remington on a coastal. I do still have friends who live there, one of them on the subsistence hunting board, and I know he carries an AR-15. I also know that he doesn't hunt brown bears with it. He doesn't hunt brown bears at all, but rather Fox, Wolverines, Wolves, and Caribou. In my forays into Canada, one tends to find a lot of surplus Smellies and Mark 4s in .303 killing everything up to and including moose.

Invariably here, any time a poster asks a question about calibers and even remotely mentions the possibility of hunting elk, certain members of the hunting community immediately assume that a violent encounter with a hulking grizzly is inevitable. Consequently, nothing smaller than a .300 Magnum is acceptable. Yet, it remains that most of these idle dreams of elk and caribou will never come to fruition, but the chance and the advice from others drives them into more gun than they really need or will ever handle well.

Let's not forget to mention that not everyone has the resources to diversify our batteries the way some of us have. Although I own at least one each of the "big 5", If I could do it all over again, I wouldn't have selected those calibers. Aside from the usual .22 Rimfire and 12 gauge shotgun, I'd have chosen the .223, the .280, and the .338. With them, I could confidently hunt anything on this continent.

It remains though that if I could afford just one rifle, it'd have to be the .30-06. No, it won't do varmints like a .223 or .22-250 will. As a deer/pronghorn cartridge, it can still be a bit on the heavy side. As an elk/moose/caribou cartridge, it's among the best. If expansion were one day in the cards, most of its shortcomings could be corrected with the addition of a .223.

I certainly hope that new members here don't read some of the stuff some of the rest of us post and leave at the end of the day thinking they're going to have to win the lottery to be able to afford all the gear the rest of us insist is necessary. A good rifle, a good pair of boots, a license, and a warm coat are all one really needs.