Bear Hunters...

[Guy Miner]

OK - you guys probably got tired of me posting the bear hunt photos I took in 2010 when my son and I had that great spot & stalk bear hunt. Dang that was fun!

So - we had the two bears turned into rugs. They look GREAT. Also have skulls perched appropriately. My bear skull is in my office at work. The guys love it!

What the heck do you experienced bear hunters do with another bear skin? And another? And so on... ?

It's expensive taxidermy, and the bears take up a lot of space on the wall or on the floor. Mama said she really doesn't need any more bear skins around the house now that there are two...

So what do you do with 'em? I'd hate to just toss out a nice bear skin. Am all fired up to go bear hunting again this year though.

Thanks, Guy

 

[DrMike]

I've tossed a surprising number of bear skins (I wanted the meat). I've given away at least ten or more to people who wanted to create a mount or a rug (there are several fine mounts of bears I shot in the homes of non-hunters). I've sold a couple to buyers who were making rugs or mounts to sell to wealthy Americans, Brits or Germans. If the hide is over six feet, it is not too difficult to sell.

 

[gerry]

Nice Guy with bear hides I have usually just thrown them away although last year I did end up sending my black bear and grizzly to the fur buyer. He said he would give me a credit for the black bear hide towards getting my grizzly done up although I might just end up getting the grizz hide tanned. That reminds me I need to clean up the grizzly and coyote skull so they look as nice as yours.

 

[jmad_81]

Guy, that rug is DAMN NICE! I'm a sucker for the bleached skulls as well.

Rugs are spendy as you mentioned. I shot a very nice bear this last spring (looks like a brother to yours), but he had a few thin spots on him. I decided that I wasn't going to spend the $1,000 on a rug that didn't look really good. It's not like that will be the only big bear I'm going to ever shoot, and if it is, I'm dead so I won't miss a rug anyways. I had mine hanging on the fence by the house, but I think my wife decided that enough was enough and tossed it. I do have the skull sitting on top of my safe though. I wanted to find a nice piece of log that I could quarter vertically and screw it into a corner with the skull attached to the top of it. I think I would cut the top downward at a bit of an angle so that the skull was pointing down a bit as well.

Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic, but we were running out of light and had to get a ways back down the hill.

 

[tecumseh]

Cool pics!

 

[6mm Remington]

Nice bears Guy and you are correct that you can only have so many of them. I have one rug and that is enough. Not nearly as large as yours but she was so fat that she is as wide as she is long. Think I had a girlfriend like that once! Only teasing, only teasing!

Next one I get I'll take the skin to my taxidermist and trade him the hide for having the skull cleaned up and bleached out, or maybe you could do that and still have a few buck set aside for your upcoming antelope hunt. I imagine if you get a really pretty buck that you may want to have him mounted! They take up very little room on the wall and are one of the prettier mounts at least that's what I think. I'll have to tempt you my friend and send you some pictures of a pedistal mount.

Nice rug sir!

 

[Songdog]

The next one I shoot.... I'm going to try and tube out like a coyote or fox. I think it would be awesome to have a 6'-8' long pelt hanging in the corner, and getting one tanned is under $100. Turn it inside out, and you could use it as a sleeping bag....

 

[jmad_81]

The next one I shoot.... I'm going to try and tube out like a coyote or fox. I think it would be awesome to have a 6'-8' long pelt hanging in the corner, and getting one tanned is under $100. Turn it inside out, and you could use it as a sleeping bag....

I really like the tubing idea!

 

[gerry]

Tube skinning would be cool, if I ever shoot a beauty chocolate or golden brown blackie that's what I would love to do with it. Here bears like that are usually young sows in the 5 foot range. I had a wolf rug made once, would like to tube skin a big black one and hang it downstairs in a particular corner down there.

This is one bear I shot that had a bad hide, I was standing in the sun and the bear was in the shade so couldn't see the rubs. Thought he was much bigger too, we saw a giant here before that left tracks 6 3/4" wide which would mean he was likely close to an 8 foot bear, saw that bear twice but could never close the deal. This bear was 6' 2" squared we left the hide there and just took the meat.

 

[LD375]

Nice bruins guys!..Now I need to find some of my pics too, I know there here somewhere

 

[IdahoCTD]

Here is my last bear. It was small but the color was cool so I couldn't pass him up. We shot a huge black bear off of the same bait 4 days earlier and actually saw this one briefly before the big boy came in.

 

[SJB358]

The next one I shoot.... I'm going to try and tube out like a coyote or fox. I think it would be awesome to have a 6'-8' long pelt hanging in the corner, and getting one tanned is under $100. Turn it inside out, and you could use it as a sleeping bag....

I really like the tubing idea!

Same here! that sounds pretty cool!

 

[SJB358]

Here is my last bear. It was small but the color was cool so I couldn't pass him up. We shot a huge black bear off of the same bait 4 days earlier and actually saw this one briefly before the big boy came in.

I have a nice color phase blackie from the Frank Church. Isn't real big, but the color looks like a grizzly.. Love it. Have it next to the bed.

 

[Guy Miner]

That is a good looking bear. Great rug!

I think a lot of the cool color-phase bears don't get real old, because some hunter sees them and thinks "Wow, nice. Not real big, but what a coat..." Bang. :grin:

 

[6mm Remington]

Here is my last bear. It was small but the color was cool so I couldn't pass him up. We shot a huge black bear off of the same bait 4 days earlier and actually saw this one briefly before the big boy came in.

Very pretty color! Wow.

 

[DrMike]

I'm chuckling as I read these last several comments. We don't see a lot of colour phase bears in this area, but when we do, they are inevitably shot as people want the hides. Consequently, these beautiful cinnamon, blonde, chocolate or even star-on-the-chest bears, don't get very large. I've shot a couple of colour phase bears, but I gave the hides away. I have seen two that were large enough to have been considered approaching trophy-size. One, a beautiful chocolate colour and perhaps slightly larger than six feet, scooted across the road into a swamp. We were driving out of the mountains when he burst out of the bush on one side of the road and into one of the thickest swamps I've ever seen. We looked for him for about thirty minutes or so, but never saw him again. He was, for sure, a lovely creature. I never heard of anyone shooting him, however. On another occasion, I was driving down into a valley with a friend who raises cattle. As we dropped off a hill and rounded a corner, he said, "How did that cow get into this meadow?" There, about 150 yards from us, was a large black bear that would have squared nearly eight feet. He was standing in tall grass. I thought it was a grizzly, until I grabbed my binoculars and looked. Then, it was obvious he was a black bear, but the colouration was closer to what I would have seen with a grizzly. By this time, the old bruin made a dash to the woods which were about twenty yards in front of him. We peeled out our rifles and scooted down to where he went in, but we never saw him again. These were undoubtedly the two largest colour phase bears I've seen in this area. I've seen quite a few six feet plus bears in this area, and I've shot a few, but they are always black.

 

[Songdog]

Interesting you don't see much color phase up there DrMike..... I've hunted a lot of bears in WA, right on the US/Canada border, and there is a significant population of color phase bears there.... about 1 in 4 I'd say.

 

[DrMike]

There is a high concentration of colour phase bears in the Cariboo region of British Columbia. However, here in the peace, they are less common. Of course, farther west, over where Gerry lives, the Kermode colour phase and the glacier bear are found. I've only heard of one white bear witnessed in this region, and I would guess it was a true albino rather than carrying the genes to qualify as a Kermode. It is much as the wolf colour phase. We have a somewhat lower concentration of black wolves in this region. Yet, in and around Jasper National Park and Mount Robson Provincial Park, I would say about 40% of the wolf population was black. There is some isolation of the gene pool region to region, I suppose.

 

[jmad_81]

I tend to see a 50/50 mix of color/black when I'm out in Eastern Oregon. I really like both, as long as it is big!

 

[IdahoCTD]

We actually have a lot of color phase bears here too. I wouldn't say it's quite 50/50 but it's at least 1 in 3.

We don't get a lot of 8' bears here. A big bear here is probably 6 1/2 to 7' and in the 3-400lb range. The one I posted the picture of is 5' nose to tail and probably weighed 175lbs. The bear we got a few days before was 6 1/2' and weighed 350lbs. He definitely ruled the roost. The smaller bear had a fresh gash on his rump, I would guess it was from the big bear, when I shot him.