Removing Hide for Taxidermy Purposes

As Tuk stated contact a taxidermist to see how to skin a bear . Its best to plan a head as 1/2 mounts and full body mounts are normally skinned up the back and NOT the belly. Bears are thin haired animals and hiding a sewing seem is difficult .

How to skin a bear for a 1/2 , 3/4 or life size mount
After the shot or arrow release when the bear is down. The proper handling of your trophy starts NOW. What you do and how you handle the harvest will greatly affect the outcome of quality of meat and taxidermy product.
Best not to gut the animal up the belly if your very close to home and can get there very quickly. If you can get home without a belly gutting proceed to next paragraph. If not then immediately after you recover your bear the animal must be gutted so the interior of the animal can cool. As soon as the bear has died this is when bacteria starts to form that will ruin the meat and cause hair to slip. Cooling of the hide and carcass must be done ASAP. I will not go into how to gut a bear but one very important part is the cut should be centered between the vent and center of the chest. It should also be straight.
Skinning for a mount like these I find to be the easiest. Lay bear on its belly arms to the sides legs straight back. Insert knife at the base of the tail and cut straight up the back bone . Stop the cut between the ears. Continue to skin work down the sides until they meet in the belly center. For the tail bone just cut it off leaving the bone inside the tail. Since the cut is so far up the head it makes cutting the neck very easy to reach.
When skinning the arms just tube skin them down to the wrist. then cut them off. Hardest part of the skinning is getting to the paws to cut the bone . Paws are left attached to the skin.
A few pointers.
If you plan to store in a freezer for a long period of time, store fur side out to slow down freezer burn. Freezer burn is the removal of moisture . If it stays there too long just throw it out as it will almost be mummified. And will not be able to be rehydrated. Most of my bear hides never see the freezer. They go from hide prep to salting into tanning solution. This way the freeze thaw bacteria doesn’t get a chance.
If you do not flesh your hide DO NOT SALT IT. Freeze or cool and get it to a taxidermist.
Where hunters loose out of bear rug size is if the cuts are not straight and centered as the taxidermist will trim the hide after it’s tanned and dry to form a symmetrical shape on both sides. A 4” cut off of center line belly cut gets an 8” narrower hide between the front and rear legs.
So to recap……
Remove the hide ASAP and cool.
Do not freeze in a ball
Remember YOUR prep will result in a better mount.

Here is my 2015 bear snare harvest
 He was 415 lbs

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Sideswipe..... I did the coywolf rug. I harvested it and 4 weeks later it was ready to finish. Like all my clients mounts they are back in less then 8 weeks.
I take pride ,sometimes an animal is back to the hunter before the season is closed.
With you hunting Blacktail you were out west?