Huge Bear!

Bronc,

Yeah, that's what I figgered.

I've measured a good number of bear hides and chatted with some of the most experienced guides in the world on the subject.

There is an honest way to measure a bear hide, but almost nobody does it any more. There is also an honest way to take a trophy picture, and that is rarely done anymore either.

If you look at the picture of the bear in question, you'll note that the guy is sitting well back from the bears head. He's doing that so the fore-shortening in the photo makes the bear look bigger. I would guess (and it's just a guess) that the bear in the photo is actually about a 9 footer and not much larger. The head is just not "square" enough to be a for-real "ten footer". And I don't see any reference to the skull size, which is the only objective means to draw a size comparison.

As for the measuring of a bear hide, cheating just a little bit will add a foot or more to the measurement. The person measuring probably doesn't even realize he is cheating because few people know how to do it, and most guides want their clients to get a "ten-footer" and use any shortcuts they can. It's good for business.

According to my old friend Hank Eaton who was one of those old-timey legendary bear guides from the 40's and 50's. An honest hide measurement is done with a green hide layed out on the ground. It is stretched out as well as possible then measured from tip of nose to tip of tail - cheaters fold out the piece of hide containing the vent to get an extra 6 or 8 inches.
Then (WITHOUT RESTRETCHING THE HIDE LATERALLY), you measure from tip of front claw to tip of front claw.

You then divide by two to get an honest square foot of the hide.

Note at the beginning that I said the hide was green. By that, I meant that it is very fresh and has not been scraped. When that hide is well scraped it will measure at least another foot and perhaps as much as an additional 18 inches.
Another method to add size is to run the tape across the curves of the hide rather than a straight measurement - you'll get several extra inches that way.

Some people just take the largest measurement (across the claws) and use that as the "size". The claw measurements will generally be 6 inches or so longer than nose to tail.

Anyway, I thought you guys might find this interesting. I don't think most people who claim to have shot a "ten-footer" are lying, I just don't think they know how to get an honest measurement.
When you hear that claim, ask what the skull measurement was. If the guy says 27 or 28 inches, he got an 8 1/2 or 9 footer. A ten footers skull will be AT LEAST 29 1/2 inches.
 
Keith, you're exactly right. I called Field-dressed and he looked up the skull size in his records and it was 28.5". He says he squared it conservatively and it was approximately 10' 3". My hunting partner here used to guide for years down on Admiralty and he's noticed that bears here in the Cordova area seem to have a larger skull size than there bears down there. I think there's a good reason record books go by skull size and not what they square out to. What the bear squares out to varies greatly by who's doing it. For some silly reason, my bear squares out MUCH larger when I'm doing the measuring than when anybody else is ;)

I couldn't agree more with the photo tricks that people do. I have to admit the thought crossed my mind on my big one but the bear died on completely flat ground so we couldn't prop him up. I ended up sitting right behind his butt with his back legs going behind me.
 
Well, I'll point out that if a hide is measured (even by an honest and knowledgeable person) AFTER it's been fleshed, you'll get an extra foot or more to the measurement. A guy shoots a bear then spends 3 or 4 happy days trimming up and scraping the hide before his charter plane picks him up, then gets his measurement in town and it comes out ten foot plus.
I'm not suggesting there's anything dishonest about that, but that's not what the old timers meant by a ten footer.

I used to have a great trophy picture of a honest-to-goodness 10'4" bear taken by a friend a few years ago, on my website (please don't ask...). That bear (even with no camera tricks) dwarfed the bear in the photo above. The difference between a 9 foot bear and a 10 foot bear is not 10% - its more like 50% in sheer bulk and size.
As enormous as that bear was, it didn't even make B&C!

Keith
 
I found it!

Attached is a "for-real" ten footer taken by a friend of mine named Dwight Van Brunt in 98 or 99.
Note that there are no camera tricks here, the bears head is lying in his lap so you can see the actual scale of the beast.

This bear went 10' 4" by honest measurement, and the skull measured around 29 3/4 (I forget the precise measurement). It didn't make B&C, but it's an honest ten footer that would satisfy any of the old timers.
 
These same photos, along with a story about how an airman on guard duty in Alaska was attacked by the bear (He stood his ground and killed the bear with a G.I.45), was posted by a dealer at a recent gun show in Orlando.Guess what kind of guns he was selling.
 
Did anyone note the difference between the photo of the really big bear I posted and the "middlin" bear we started with?

It's really hard to judge bears, but the really big males have a squarish head while smaller ones are more tapered in appearance - sort of like a black bear.

I think the photo's in this thread illustrate that pretty well.
 
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