Any PA guys out there thinking that the coon will be prime a lot earlier than usual due to the cold temps the past two weeks?

Prime fur is controlled by the amount of daylight, not temperature

Cold has nothing to do with any critter priming up. It has to do with the length of daylight.
Dennis

It has been overcast for almost two straight weeks

Its been significantly colder and cloudy here since mid september, to the point that small shallow sloughs were starting to freeze over. Caught these on Oct. 16. This was just after getting skinned and fleshed, they turned blue throughout this morning.

$2.00 coon LOl

Nope, October coon are still October coon, been that way since the 70's and don't expect it to change, lol. Wait until November at least.

some of the older guys never grow up and never learn ? lol

Year after year I see the topic of coon primeness pop up around this time and year after year the answer is the same, it is triggered by the amount of daylight. I often times find myself saying that same thing to people I talk to just because of the frequency of times it is said on here. What I never see brought up is the fact that coons are predominantly nocturnal and spend most of the day in a dark hole, attic, hay bale, abandoned house, tree pile, etc which should block out more light than the cloudy day that is often described as being a factor. If the thesis that daylight is the main factor in determining how prime a coon is true, it would then seem logical to assume that coons who choose very dark dens and don't venture out much during the day would be prime year round. But that is not true. Even if they are venturing out during the day for say 2 hours, what would be the difference of two hours of daylight in July versus 2 hours of daylight in December? The coon is still getting 2 hours of daylight in both instances. I'm not typing this to suggest that cold weather is the driver of pelts priming, I'm more just pointing out holes in the logic that is spread every year. The truth is I have no idea what causes the change, but it seems to me that it is more than just daylight.

To me the cold weather causes the coon to stay in buildings and dens to avoid cold weather thus keeping them out of the sunlight causing fur to prime up

they should all be good at this time especially the further south you are so i'd go out and catch a 1000.the turkeys will thank you.

But as daylight decreases, night time hours increase. There's about 2 hours less daylight on November 15th than there is October 15th in Wisconsin. The raccoon doesn't make a conscious decision to prime up, so whether it sees the decreased daylight or not, I feel that plays a part in their physiological change.

But there will always be some variation within a species, just like not all of them like the same baits/lures.

I always figured those old barn coon never primed up especially the old sow coon.
In my area It takes some mighty cold weather for a coon to go to the barn or for that matter den up.

I’m thinking it’s the “quality” of the light meaning frequency. As sunlight goes thru more atmosphere during fall months, something changes the incoming frequency. Well this and the age trigger within the brains of critters. Take this with a grain of salt

Maybe "den" wasn't the proper terminology in my blurb. I guess I call where ever a coon spends his day a den if that spot is somewhat covered regardless of the time of year. Perhaps I should have said "If a coon chooses a dark spot to sleep off the day..."

So last year I shipped 5 raccoon to the auction. 4 are in the photograph below, the raccoon missing from the photo was a small damaged early coon that my 13 y/o nephew put up so I shipped it just to spur some interest. It was blue as the two on the right, small and damaged from his best efforts at fleshing.

Here are four. This photo was taken November 13, so all of these were caught before then and had time to dry.


Here is the damaged one to make the five total shipped before it got skinned, next to one of the others. FYI those two were taken October 21.




Below is the proof of my auction results for these five coon. The average is a few cents over $20 if you discount the small damaged one put up by my nephew. Even with that one in the mix it is a little over $16.

Different wave lengths of light depending on time of year.

That’s proof right there that blue coon can still bring some good money. Yes, the square inches is a factor, but leather color, not so much. Was $5.50 the one with all the tick bites? That’s my guess.

I have no clue what the $5.50 one was.

When you say the 5th coon you shipped was "small and damaged", I assume you mean small compared to the other 4 Raccoon.

Since the $5.50 coon was only an XL, it should be easy to figure out which of the 4 it was. Assuming there is a picture of all 4 spread out next to each other. Assuming, of course, that NAFA still measures coon properly.....