I got my full body bear mount back from my friend Dean Stallion at American Taxidermy Saturday. My great uncle has done all my other work but at 76 he decided that rolling around in the floor with a 7 foot bear was not do-able. He referred me to Dean, and he did a great job. I had gone to hunt at Stickflingers with Ryan Delago a couple of years ago and killed the bear of my dreams with my longbow. Here's the thread if you missed it:
http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=104915 Evidently this mount was quite a challenge and it took getting a black bear form and deciding it didn't really fit and then ordering a small grizz form that seemed the best fit. It took an enclosed trailer to get it home from the 90 mile trip...on top of that the bear was supposed to be finished about the time our new house was done. The new house got held up by weather so this big guy gets to live in the 30by30 pole barn with the whole family until January, along with a bunch of whitetail mounts, mule deer mounts and various skulls of other ungulates. I have a great wife, and I know I outkicked my coverage when I married her. She is looking forward to the day when the barn is my full-fledged man cave
Thanks to the fine artist who did the work, Ryan the bear man for helping me realize a dream, and my brothers and sisters here who I enjoy living a hunting life with through their writing and posting
*A full body mount takes up alot of room in 900 sq feet.
*I put the skull mount in part of the pedistal. It was done by our own Brad Harriman as part of the St. Jude auction. Thanks to Brad!!!