Ben Mears grew up in North Mississippi and has enjoyed the outdoors all of his life. At the age of 12, Ben began to learn the craft of taxidermy. Over the next 18 years, whitetail forms changed drastically. Ben’s first whitetail deer were mounted on “homemade forms” consisting of the boiled skull, 2×4’s and wood excelsior. The crafting and fashioning of these “homemade forms” as a teenager is actually when Ben began to appreciate the need and value of a good whitetail form in order to produce a great whitetail mount.
In 1989 at the age of 30 and with 18 years of experience in taxidermy, Ben began to work toward sculpting and crafting the absolute best whitetail form available to taxidermists. Ben spent thousands of hours over the next several months and years improving his whitetail forms. As a taxidermist, every mount Ben prepared for his hundreds of customers resulted in small, subtle modifications and revisions to his forms which continued to add to the life-like quality all taxidermists desire for their customers’ trophies.
An avid hunter, Ben observed countless whitetails and was always working to develop more poses for his customers to choose from when they brought him their whitetail trophies. The Mears family actually raised a whitetail named Prince. Prince lived to be 15 years old, during which time Ben photographed and studied Prince which only added to Ben’s ability to create the most life-like whitetail form available. Ben created over 200 whitetail forms for taxidermists to review and for customers to choose from. These forms took into account the different features of the smaller southern whitetails and the larger northern whitetails.
In 2006, Ben sold his forms to a company and left the form industry. However, Ben continued to enjoy using the forms he had created on the many whitetail deer which he mounted over the next 10 years.
Now, in 2017, Ben is once again pursuing his passion for sculpting and creating the best whitetail form available. Ben continues to work on creating his new whitetail forms. These forms are available and may be viewed by perusing the many photographs on our website. These forms enhance the details taxidermists want and create a mount that your customers will love.
Mears Whitetail Forms in Mantachie, Mississippi, is still a family owned and operated business. Ben is available Monday through Friday to answer any questions, make suggestions or simply offer some of the insight his 40+ years in taxidermy have taught him. We believe once you use one of these Mears Whitetail Forms, you will agree with us. Mears Whitetail Forms are the finest whitetail forms available on the market today. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or comments.