At the end of a long day when the last thing you feel like doing is skinning... guess what needs to happen. Skinning! I used to bring a freezer and put hides in it but ever try to skin a load of cats, then go to turn the hides, etc. Crazy hard by yourself. Now I skin and flip as I go. I don't borax my cats either as its a form of tanning that breaks down pelt fibers prior to the real tanning, so you get docked by those buyers who know what they are looking at (and the best ones do, trust me).

Adam m,

The late season cats go to the tannery. About 75% of these came from "prime time" which is Jan-Feb. for me since I'm busy during much of March with our Predator Trapping Academy in Kansas.

Next year I may do a bit better as I move some better bobcat ranch trapping work to prime time and less productive ranches to later than that. I had four new high fence ranches this year and one that I trapped during late February produced 6 cats. Not too many for the acreage so I'll trap that ranch in May next year. Likewise a ranch I trapped in May I took 13 cats off of, I'll switch to late Feb when cats are really moving... should bump that number to 20+.

I know I caught cats in NE this year when I was the only trapper out that I know of in a pretty big swath of ground because the weather was windy and super duper brutal. Don't know where other trappers were, but western cats bring good money... and I like brutal ;-).

[quote=Mark June]Thank you Dewey. The picture layout and angle was my wife Donna's idea.
She also took this picture after suggesting I lay out my traps after I was dying and waxing all my 550's.
Came out pretty cool.



great job. after seeing you at a demo with the 550s I tried them and love them. my go to trap now.

how many of them you run at a time?