Skip to main content

The skull of a bear

I got my skull back from Lori and Jim at New Frontier Taxidermy!  They are incredible.  Not only are they tanning my bear hide but they saved my skull.  Saved it!

A look into my bear's mouth
 One of the things that I did not want to tell people was that when my bear was getting cut up at the butcher's, his skull was cut.  I knew it was bad and the look on my guide's face was a give away for how bad it may be.  But, I had my bear head, hide and an extra bag with the back part of his skull in it that I took up to New Frontier Taxidermy for Lori and Jim.  I lied to people when they asked me about it and hoped against hope that Lori and Jim could but it back together.  I wanted a complete skull and if I could make it into the record books, that would be an added bonus.

This past weekend, I got my skull.  It is together but not complete. 

Not quite the same angle but close.
They had to wrap my skull and the additional piece in cheese cloth to make sure they would be able to find all of the pieces that they needed as they fleshed it out. Jim made me promise to never have that butcher touch any animal that I kill and then assured me that if the pieces were all there, he could rebuild it. I needed it to measure 18 inches in length and width to be a record book bear.

Check out those teeth - left side view

Are you ready for the "bad" views?

Right side - no cheek arch

There was no arch to find and glue back on to the skull.  You can also see the cut at the back of the skull where Lori and Jim reattached it to the main part of the head.  No cheek arch meant that the skull was unable to be measured, which meant no record book.

From the back

We didnt know it at the time, but the butcher had cut into the skull three times before my guide stopped him.  If he hadn't, it is clear that the skull would have been beyond repair.

Lori and Jim did an incredible job gluing the pieces back together and making sure that they got as much of it complete as they could.  I asked Lori when I picked it up if she thought that it would have hit 18 inches if the arch was there.  She started comparing it to other skulls on the table and guessed that mine would have measured 18 and 9/12 inches.  Given that she is a taxidermist, she knows her stuff and can break it down into fractions.  He would have made the record books! He is a record sized bear.

I save the deer antlers from the deer that I have shot and have a few sets mounted but I have never kept a deer skull (I might after seeing this bear) but I now have my bear skull.  It is not complete but it is still impressive.  I will have a bear skin rug with my bear's face and his awesome scars, that will be seen by my friends and family for years to come.  My grandkids will see and feel that bear and know the story.  This skull is a prop to tell the story with.  Every cut and missing piece is a part of the story of my bear hunt.  And I am ok with that.

My bear - 457lbs.  Shot Oct 13, 2014








Labels:

Comments

  1. Robin FolletteNovember 25, 2014

    You are a very generous woman. Someone should be thanking you for not giving their name. I hope anyone reading this from your area will ask you for the information before making appointments. Someone owes you big time.

    The skull is awesome! That's very cool. I can't wait to see it in person.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Healthy Coyote coming through

I still have a few trail cameras out to see what the deer are up to.  I have gotten pictures of the big buck that is around and most recently, I got these pictures.  Normally, I wouldn't be too freaked out but now that we have a dog, it is a little unnerving.  Add that this camera is about 50 feet from our lawn and less than 100 feet from our front door... I hope that this one is just passing through. (Sidenote: I put new batteries in this camera so the date and time are wrong BUT  I walked in front of it so it would take my picture and I could figure out what the actual time and date were: 7am Saturday morning.)
Post a Comment
Read more

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it....
15 comments
Read more

Do Outdoor Women need to toughen up?

I hope you get shot out in the forest and wolves gnaw on your dying corpse…..WHILE YOU’RE STILL ALIVE I’d like to rip off your f*$%ing head and pour gunpowder down your f*$%ing throat and light it on fire Only c*%t’s shoot animals and take pleasure in it. I hope you die a horrible painful death As I began to look at how female hunters were being bullied, I had to ask myself if it was because we were easy targets as women or if we needed to just toughen up a little. Once I started asking my fellow female hunters about their experiences, the things that they sent to me as examples of what they deal with daily made me sick to my stomach.  I’d like to meet you outside someday with a gun in my hand, I would shoot you several times and laugh over your f*$%ing body as you die like you do to those poor animals that can’t defend themselves.  MURDERER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Generally threats are basic name calling. They include sexist remarks, racist remar...
12 comments
Read more