iffy bear hide

[tuatee]

I think this bear  will be alright, although I am a little worried that it didn`t come of soon enough. Due to conditions out of my control, the skin stayed on this bear overnight because the owner of the property I was hunting, wanted to get some whole pictures of the bear back at camp. So we proceeded throughout the night with headlamps, a chainsaw and atv including a winch and plenty of grunting and farting to bring this bruin out off a scrub oak hillside and back to camp.
 Personally I just wanted to skin the bugger(the bear that is), quarter it up like an elk and take the 400 yd trip back up and across the hillsideto the atv`s and be done with the whole deal in a third of the time,and get some good shuteye! After a couple of hours sleep I dragged my butt out of bed, not feeling to bad at the time actually,considering the the previous nights mission; and ventuered out to do the dirty work of cleaning up this 400+ lb beasty. When the meat was on ice(about 11 o`clock) I skinned out the head turned the lips and ears, and tail right away and threw on as much salt as we had, which wasn`t a lot but enough to get a little bit on everything and a smothering on both ends, and then the skin was balled up and left in the shade. I resalted it just before dark and then the next morning about 10 as I made my way on the five hour trip back home. Whence home, it was resalted thickly a second time and left overnight, the salt scraped of and shelved in the freezer.
 What is the most of the worry, is that the temperature never really got that cold and in the mornings we would just have a little frost, and I don`t believe this bear was  cooling off as well as it should have been, beng a whole animal, apart from it`s guts! When the skin was put in the freezer I then went to cleaning up the quarters and back staps which I must add were starting to spoil as far as I could tell but only around certain areas!
 Enough said, what do you suppose would be my best plann of attack when getting around to home tanning this for a rug or life size mount. I really would hate to lose this skin, as it is to me  a bear of a life time and would be a nice piece! Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank`s in advance! Adrian

P.s. If nothing else I guess I stll have the skull, claws ,pic`s,hopefully the meat, a good story, and memories, and the rancher has a few pic`s and stories to go along with his new atv trail and a few broken tools!
I must add that the hunt was a great deal, as  it only half cost me a case of coors light, and a bottle of crown, so I don`t feel I can cmplain to much if I do lose the skin!

[AndyO]

I think the hide will be OK. One thing you shouldn't have done was put the hide in the freezer after you salted it. Once you applied salt you should continue the salting process until the hide is stiff. You can then store the hide in a dry cool place until your ready to send it out to a tannery. If it were my hide I would take it out of the freezer, apply Stop-Rot, and continue salting process. Good luck.

[Tenbears]

first of I Agree with Andy. Get that bear out of the freezer and resalt and dry it. salt can prevent the hide from freezing properly. 
Secondly I cannot strongly recommend enough that you do not even think about a home tan on a bear.  No offense intended but you sound as if you have a grievous lack of experience to attempt a bear.  and unless you are extremely familiar with decreasing, and deodorizing. you probably will do more damage than the  slow salting did.
  Thaw that bear. shake it out well. lay flat on a grate. in a warm dry place. out of direct sunlight. and salt liberally and allow to dry. then ship to a tannery. you will not regret it.