Well there it is. Experience being shared. I haven't put of thousands of anything and have caught and put up exactly two beaver. Thanks to you, trapper ron, beaverpeeler and others I was able to put those two up with compliments from the buyer who gave me a good bit more than average for my effort. Putting up any fur well isn't easy and so far I have to say beaver takes the most work but it isn't so bad when you pay attention to the guys who are willing to share what they know.

Great post

Boco

That clean skinning is impressive. Don't know if I have a knife that could do that. Can you recommend one for those of us who are in awe of that photo??

I use two knives basically for clean skinning beaver,a Post large round nose beaver skinner,for the smaller beaver and belly on bigger beaver,and a victorinox 5inch skinner for the rest.

Boco, as much trouble as I am having fleshing beaver I may try clean skinning next year. I'd rather spend and extra hour skinning than the three hours I am on fleshing. My question is around the tail and back, I'd think that would be very, very tough to clean skin?

Does everyone remove the ears? I've only done six beavers, but never removed the ears.

Does a frost-dried beaver (or any species) get a damage grade? Frost dried is just another term for freezer burn, correct?

Not many have the correct climatic conditions for frost drying.Frost drying also ties up your boards as it takes a couple weeks to frost dry a pelt properly,and the temps have to remain well below freezing to make a proper job,also the air has to be dry or those that look frost dried are really not dry and will be floppy when brought inside.
This is why frost drying is not recommended by the auction houses.
Do not confuse frost scraping with frost drying-they are two totally different things.
Frost scraped pelts are dried same as any other pelt,in cool temps of around 50f.

Once you get the hang of it clean skinning is pretty easy.It will take you a while until you get the feel of it.The back and rump area is not difficult and skins clean.
Sharp knife with a nice sweep to the blade is key.
Beeverpeeler has a good video of cleanskinning on here somewhere.

No

Go back to the first posting on this thread and you will see that the ears are removed. One nail to close the hole or just leave it open does not matter.

You do not have to skin absolutely clean. A bit of fat or little bits of meat are very easily removed with the one hand fleshers. The very first picture of what appears to be "clean" skinned has a bit of fat and bits of meat on it yet. Less than five minutes with the one hand flesher and it is clean.

For me I have tried every way with beaver. Clean skin, rough skin, and case skin. Always go back to clean skinning with tidy up with a one hand flesher as it is being boarded.

But If you learn to rough skin and flesh on a beam you don't have to go back and spend 5 min cleaning up.

I have tried and tried to get clean skinning down but It's not going to happen. 6 Min to rough skin and 10 min to scrape clean with my Necker.
But It took me awhile to get to that point.

I think most guys struggle because of how they position the hide on the beam.

I agree with Ron,when clean skinning you can leave a few streaks of fat and meat on the hide,it doesn't have to be completely clean,unless you want to skin it that way.
It seems that the bigger the pile of beaver on the floor,the less clean your skinning will be.This is not a problem as a few swipes with a scraper after boarding cleans them up pretty good
If frost scraping you can clean skin real fast,and leave quite a bit more "stuff" on the pelt as it is easy and fast to clean off.

Beav nothing wrong with your method at all. There are many trappers who rough skin and beam flesh, and faster than most clean skin and board. A lot is dependent upon how you learned and how many beaver you have put up in that fashion are my thoughts.

I have a good friend who clean skinned and put up 100's of beaver. He was very good at it and his product was superb. He completely changed to rough skinning and beaming them.

It is best to try a couple of different ways then choose the one you are most comfortable with. Form there it is just a lot of practice and experience. Do not expect to put up your first beaver in under an hour or maybe even your tenth one. You will get better and shave minutes off your total time through practice.

My guess is that you are concerned that you did something wrong. No, you will not get docked for excessive ears on your pelts.

No downgrade for ears as long as they are not rotting.
A couple more reasons to remove ears,they are usually the last spot to dry and if removed you can free up your boards a day sooner.
Pelts stack better with no ears sticking out.

One reason; dry quicker. Those huge beaver ears don't effect stacking around here.

Ya beaver ears just dry up and pretty much disappear.

I have my boards stacked On 4 wheel carts built just for my beaver boards. The racks are slotted and I can just slide In a board. I keep a fan blowing air on them 24/7 and I like to turn my boards every day. Turning your boards so the nose Is up every other day will get them to dry a lot faster. The tail end of your beaver will be the last to dry because of the heavy gristle In that area.

You are supposed to remove the heavy gristle,lol.
Beaver ears stick up about an inch,stack 50 and press for bagging and the head end sticks up quite a bit more than the tails.
Ears removed for flat stacking and fast drying.

No "gristle on tail"

There was that one time I reached down to remove a Beaver from a Duke 330 and almost poked an eye out on a Beaver ear.