Trapping Predators

1phes, you were correct with foot-hold. The goal with a foot hold is to catch the animal across the pad, the strongest catch. If you catch an animal up on the leg, you are more apt to break a long bone and cause more damage to the target. That is not the desired end.
 
Live2Hunt said:
dog in the sense the muscle allows the beaver to shake off the water.
It has been my experience that muscle is not real easy to get off for a beginner. But you obviously have Taxidermy skills so this might not be a big deal for yourself.
Also just a FYI. If you can hold off on trapping beaver until the hard part of Winter (January where I live) the fur on the pelts become much denser. This results in a higher price for the trapper per pelt.
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Thankfully I have a mini-flesher that shaves the fat and muscle off the skin with ease. Beats doing it the old fashioned way.....at least from a taxidermist prospective.

Unfortunately I have to get the beavers out of that area now. The land owner wants them gone. Otherwise I would most definitely wait later in the season. Plus once their out I gain a good pheasant hunting area too. Just a little intensive. lol

Thanks again for all your help guys. I really appreciate your patience with my trapping for beginners questions.

---And PrairieDrifter, thanks for clarifying.;)
 
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Ah ok.

Another idea you might consider is tanning the pelts yourself then make mittens or a mad bomber style hat from the pelts.
I can tell you that beaver fur is very warm, but you might want to shear it down some.

Also yea that is a great way to get into the good graces of a land owner. Remove the vermin they do not like.
 
A couple of skinning tips. The biggest place to mess up is the nipples. This is both during skinning and fleshing. As stated earlier, beaver are stretched round and flat after open skinning. If you use plywood and nails, be sure to use galvanized or aluminum nails to avoid rust. I like 2 1/2 inch shingle nails about 1/4 to 1/2 inches apart. You put nails in across the pelt from one another filling in the spaces between nails until it is round. It has to be fleshed first and be sure to nail the leg holes closed to make the pelt more presentable. It is permissable to trim the lips and tail regions to make the ends round. I raise the pelt up on the nails so as to not flatten the fur while it dries. I use a fiberglass beam and Necker 500 fleshing knife if I don't skin them clean. Carpal tunnel makes skinning a much more difficult prospect than when I was in my teens and twenties.

Coon, skunk, oppossum are stretched over wire of wood forms after skinning cased. Cased is splitting the critter from heel to rectum to heel and taking the pelt off like a sock. The head should be skinned completely leaving the lips, eye lids, and nose attached. You make a "window" from the penile tip back to the original cut for the fur buyer to grade through. These are stretched fur in.

Coyote, cat, fox and badger are skinned and stretched cased, but they are stretched ultimately fur out. You stretch them originally fur in, then turn them before they are completely dry. Fun stuff. Much to learn, too much to teach in a paragraph or two. I'm sure the aforementioned links and pm's were more helpful.
 
I was going thru and reading this again and here is a website that will have some odd recipes on what is being talked about. www.backwoodsbound.com There are recipes for beaver and some others along this line on here.
 
Okay, this is it for a while (questions). I have to admit I'm being a bit lazy. There's plenty of books to read on this subject but with this being my busy season reading books is on the back burner for now.

Prairie drifter, you mention that lips can be left on. Do they need to be split or left as they are? Same with eyes and the nose?

Also, do you guys wash/degrease furs/skins before you sell?
 
The fur buyer that I go to likes getting the carcass because he has buyers for the meat in the southern states. He has a tandem axle cargo trailer that he fills up and ships the meat once a week to the meat buyers down south.He delivers meat in 4 different states.Some of the buyers are mom & pop diners that serve possum meat and some other fur bearing meats as well.
 
1pheas, they'll dry as they are. Some people cut off the bottom jaw skin, I never did. I did usually sew it up to the nose in 1 place. I liked to wash coons and coyotes after fleshing. For the coyotes, it cleans the fur which usually lightens the color some and makes them grade up at times. With coons, it degreases and makes them more presentable. I sometimes take an air hose to the beavers to give them loft. Snapping them does about the same thing.
 
Prairie Drifter said:
1pheas, they'll dry as they are. Some people cut off the bottom jaw skin, I never did. I did usually sew it up to the nose in 1 place. I liked to wash coons and coyotes after fleshing. For the coyotes, it cleans the fur which usually lightens the color some and makes them grade up at times. With coons, it degreases and makes them more presentable. I sometimes take an air hose to the beavers to give them loft. Snapping them does about the same thing.
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After washing and degreasing a bird skin (for taxidermy) I dry and fluff the feathers by blowing it off with a shop vac. It moves a LOT of air and really fluffs up the down without any heat. A shop vac might be a tool worth trying on your predator skins.
 
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