During the holidays my wife and I had dinner at some friends house. They have some nice mounts through out the house. At the end of the night she asked why I don't display my stuff. Most of my gets thrown out by the shed to bleach out by mother nature or a simple cutting of of the horns. It's not that I don't like mounts It's just hard do justify the bill. I killed a good bear a few years ago and was going to be my frist mount(rug). Long story made short my brother went through a nasty divorce with the taxidermist cousin and it cost me $300 for boiled out skull. My wife thinks I should to do something with my bear skull since it was my frist big game animal since I retured back to traditional archery. So lets see some ideas!

Necklace!

Just kidding.  I have a javelina skull I had a buddy bug and I bleached and is displayed on a shelf in the house.

Keep us posted on what ya choose!

This shows my bear skull mounted on a plaque. I hung the claws from the front paws on a leather cord and attached it to the plaque. The pictures on either side are a field photo of me and my bear and a collage of photo's from my trip. Below is a bow rack made from the rear paws of my bear. The bear was too badly rubbed for a rug so I decided to do this. If I find a better close up of the skull and claws I will post it.

       

Like above, IF I had one (LOL)

I had a helmet made out of mine

 

I had the skull on a pedestal, with the base shaped like an arrowhead. It got lost in a move, but I still have a very nice rug. Somewhere, there is a P&Y bear skull between Casper and Buffalo.

I think if you get a bear you should be able to do anything you want. What a fun hunt it must have been.  

 

QuoteLong story made short my brother went through a nasty divorce with the taxidermist cousin and it cost me $300 for boiled out skull.

Did you mean to write your brother married his cousin????

just a guess, but i think he is saying that his brother was married to the cousin of the taxidermist he used, and got devorced, so the taxidermist was getting back at the OPs brother by way overcharging him for a skull cleaning.

I had mine done like this.. it can also be rotated 180 deg. and hung from the wall... I have a young friend who is also an excellent taxidermist.

He did this mount and a beautiful rug on my 5'8" [square] kenai Black bear for the whopping price of $1060.00 I feel I definately got my money's worth.    



Gene

I really like skulls displayed via a skull hooker mount. Also i like to have my skulls painted by my skull guy who uses a textured paint type finish to make it look like granite or sandstone etc but keeping the teeth white. I think it looks really nice and is a little nicer than plain skull. Also having someone paint something cool on the skull look good too.

Pretty cool pics guys

Here's the rug as a background for my favorite bow



Gene

Now thats a helmet Ron! No my brother didn't marry his cousin. We are small town folk but not that small.
To say the least my bear pelt for the rug came up missing! So all I have is the skull now.
I like what I'm seeing so far so let's see some more.

When I moved in I just left it there. I like looking at it every morning.

QuoteOriginally posted by L. E. Carroll:
I had mine done like this.. it can also be rotated 180 deg. and hung from the wall... I have a young friend who is also an excellent taxidermist.

He did this mount and a beautiful rug on my 5'8" [square] kenai Black bear for the whopping price of $1060.00 I feel I definately got my money's worth.    

 

Gene

I love this!  I'm going to do this with the skull of the buck I killed at Solana this year.

double post...

Mine is setting on my fire place mantel.  It looks good there.

Here's mine.

When I had a fireplace I kept some on the mantel too.  Don't have one at the new place though.

Coolest way I've seen is a friend has a very large Kodiak brown bear skull just set on, not attached to, a wooden chessboard where half of the square pieces are a dark walnut and the other half looked more like oak.  When I first saw it, I said "Hey, that looks great, who did that for you".  And he replied that he had just happened to set it on the chessboard, realized it looked great and left it that way. Its nice also in that you can pick the skull up and handle it, turn it around etc.  Its been awhile but I think the chessboard was really a box where the board/lid hinged and you could store the pieces within.

Chinook907,

I would not handle them much unless they are sealed with a clear coat of some type, as oil from your hands will [or may] transfer to and penetrate the pores changing the color over time..

Greg,

I saw the pictures of your buck on another post...Very nice