Black, where were you up north?

I have 45 or so froze solid in the freezer and they need to get boarded soon, so I'll thaw them in batches of ten in case it takes me forever to skin them.

Michael

In the Nemaji near Sandstone ,Decent cat area I guess.Fisher seem very scarce.Just took four days which wasn't enough but I hed to get home.Probably should have left some boxes and went back.Next year I need a better plan.

Yeah, I've heard there are [plenty of cats in the area. I can get one tied up for you next year! lol

still plenty of season left.

michael

ive heard those ranch mink are a joy to work with but ive never messed with them myself. michael, brent and i both skin them in our laps, no tables or clamps for the mink. what slows folks down the most is too much cutting and not enough hand pulling. we dont sit on buckets,,,we have chairs. haha. sounds like youre doing great on the cats. mad trapper, i doubt if i'll make the winter meeting, again. always seems to be too much work to do around here and now we're putting up fur for the next month at least. im NOT fast at scraping coons.

Not fast, I can relate to that.

Half-fast best describes me.

Only thing about the ranch mink is.....the males are frigging huge...and they pull pretty hard after a couple hundred or so:)

You guys rock!

For my mink skinning I have a sharpened nail on the edge of my bench. I poke the paw on it and it holds well. It takes me 3-4 minutes or so and then I turn and shake them, but I don't think I can do 25 in an hour.
Great catch Tim.

Caught a cat before Michael but not a fisher it won't work out this year.Oh well a guy needs goals ,next year I will get a fisher I have no doubt about that.

Like fossil2... I skin mink on my lap. After opening and pulling the tail I step on the loose leg and tail skin and pull down to the front legs and skin with them with my thumb. I have snipped off the front feet so pulling the legs Is easy . And then I pull again intill the knife is needed again for the head . This takes about 3 mins.
Jim

a processor buddy of mine does 25 an hour, but can only keep it up for 5 hours before his hands give out. i have the same problem, and i cant peel a coon by hand anymore as i cant grip that greasy hide well enough to pull it off. i have to step on the bigger males too jim, but the young and females just peel right off. a friend skinned the first rat he'd done in many years this fall, and it took him 35 minutes, but after a few dozen, he got that down to about 10 minutes. haha. was thinking about having him spend a friday nite here, and put him to work the next day so he can see how things work. i think its something that cant be explained, but once seen, it comes easily.

Nice catch pics!!!!

Do any of you place guides inside the jaws for mink?

I was reading in Richard Faler Jr.'s book and this was one thing he talked about.

Using something that will crush under the force of the jaws.

Also, have any of you spiked your small coni's? He takes a long carriage bolt and puts it in place of the rivet, than uses that as a support by placing it in the ground.

As fossil mentioned it sounds like your doing too much knife work and not enough hand pulling. I use my knife 3 times.

Once for the original cut across back legs.
Again after I pull the hide from the back legs and up over the glands(1 cut to separate hide from glands)
Last on the head.
Everything is pulled by hand including the tail.

Oh I might add on some of the big bucks another cut around the tail is needed but I don't split the tail one bit. It seems to work better if you don't split the tail when just using your fingers. I haven't have a tail that I couldn't pull by hand in 17 yrs.

I can't explain it w/o pics but maybe this makes sense to you.

dust,,,all my mink are taken in pockets so no conis on my line. the spike method you speak of will work fine, however you get a strike on the sides of the head, not the throat and back of the neck. some believe this isnt a good thing. the only time i guide stick inside the jaws is after a coon catch and im feeling too lazy to redig the pocket. i only do this on one side of the trap, the dog side, as the other jaw is tight against the side of the pocket. hope this makes sense.

Yep, makes sense fossil. Thanks for the reply.

grizz, your hands are in better shape than mine for stripping those tails. i have a better method, never fails, and doesnt hurt my wrists at all. let brent skin the dam things. haha. i'll scrape and board.