wayback in 1973 I killed a 9'10" brownie with my bow while sitting over a gut pile from a moose my wife had killed the week earlier. When we skinned him we found what my best guess would be as a well mushroomed 25-27 caliber bullet on the flat of the shoulder blade, several buckshot in the head an neck. He also was missing an eye and the same side ear was nothing but a slight bump of scar tissue.
A few years later while grocery shopping by chance I ran into a local that realted a story where he said his newphew and his girlfriend had been hunting 'bou with his 257 W'By Mag and he was carrying a shotgun loaded with 00 buckshot for protection.when they surprized a brwn bear off a kill. The bear came at them immediately and he cut loose with the buck shot grabbed the rifle from his frozen girlfreind and shot twice as the bear was staggering around. The bear took off and they left to report it to the local authorities.
The area they were hunting was less than 15 miles from where I killed my bear!......same one????????? I think so. BB

While hunting with Phil Shoemaker this spring I shot a bear that had some previous damage to its jaw.

Looking through the glasses at the bear my guide Taj said it looked like it had something in its mouth.



After it was dead we discovered that what it had in its mouth was some loose teeth. Notice the tooth here that was attached to its lip but not the jaw.



The front of the skull. Note the missing bone structure on the left side where an upper tooth belongs.



The right side. Notice the missing and fractured teeth.



The left side. Note the missing teeth and the worn lower front tooth. Again there appears to be damage to the jaw bone where a tooth was broken out.



Here he is today � happy with his new false teeth. What do you think happened to him � a moose kick � a fall from a cliff � or a fight with another bear?



Looking at the wear to the teeth hanging from his lip I figure he was fairly old before this happened. There was damage to both sides of his jaw.

Would the damage to both sides of his skull tend to indicate a fight with another bear rather than a moose kick or fall?

If another bear did this somebody needs to go look up the winner (assuming this bear was the loser) because the winner has to be one heck of a bad bear - still wandering around in Phil�s area.

Could a bullet have done the damage? Or did it look like more of a "bite" from another Bear?



Nice Bear, Good looking mount.

It is a tough life out there...
My guess a moose or another bear.

Could have been any of the things you mentioned. What did Phil think? Or perhaps ol'458 Win Mag himself may chime in.

Anyhow, it makes the skull an even better trophy in my opinion. Thanks for the pictures.