Dead Weight - A Bear's Resurrection

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xOEDragonx
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Dead Weight - A Bear's Resurrection

Post by xOEDragonx »

Rather than dig up a long dead competition or a 2018 hunting thread, I've decided to make a new thread regarding a bear that many of you forum-goers might already be familiar with. For those unknowing, he was the star and center focus of a community competition called "Dead Weight" held here on the forum during November 2018. The competition showed some real life trophy shots of this bear in different poses and participants had to guess his weight and harvest a black bear in theHunter as close to his real weight as possible. Click HERE to revisit this old competition and click HERE to read the long-winded story of the actual hunt. To spare you the details though, this bear had an official estimated live weight of approximately 406 pounds (184 kg) and our local wildlife agency used a tooth extraction method to age him at just under 5 years old.

The purpose of this thread is to finish the story and let you all know what finally happened with this big guy. A few weeks after the competition took place, I cleaned the skull up and mounted it on plaque. At one point I had it scored by an official Boone & Crockett measurer and it came out to an even 19.0 inches. Not bad for an Old Line state bear.

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The skull was a pretty neat addition to my living room decor and I've enjoyed having it around for the last year. But more recently, I had the pleasure of bringing the actual bear himself home. Well, half of him anyway. My house is a little too cozy to be mounting full size big game animals! This half mount was over a year in the making but definitely worth the wait. The taxidermist did a fantastic job on him. The pictures don't do him any justice whatsoever though, this guy is truly huge in person. If he looks big next to me at all, I promise it's not all just forced perspective. It took having the whole bear team in the picture to make him look smaller. He really is an incredible animal. So without further ado, here is what's left of the ol' John Boar you were all hunting for in Settler Creeks!

Just me and a big-headed bear...
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And the rest of the bear team!
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I hope you folks enjoy!
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DYEUZ
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Re: Dead Weight - A Bear's Resurrection

Post by DYEUZ »

Great stuff. Love the skull mount !
Grats again Ashley . :)

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caledonianblues
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Re: Dead Weight - A Bear's Resurrection

Post by caledonianblues »

That's a nice looking bear Ashley. I really love the skull mount with the shell casing. Looks great.
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Sarroth
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Re: Dead Weight - A Bear's Resurrection

Post by Sarroth »

Taxidermist really did a first class work(adept for the Natural History Museum), but I envy you that skull mount. :)
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