Carry a bunch of newspapers in your truck. Wrap each rat or mink up in about 3-4 pages. You will be surprised how quickly it pulls the water out of the fur. Won’t be completely dry but will speed up the process immensely. Newspapers are also THE BEST method for drying your boots- loosely crumple 6-8 pages and stuff them in each boot. If you had a mishap and filled them with water, you may have to change the newspapers out 2-3 times. Will wick out all the moisture and will have a nice dry comfy pair of boots ready to go for your next check!

Skinning technique- once you open up the back legs and get pelt loose from the tail, sit the rat on his rump, grab the pelt on the top side of the tail, put your right hand on the rats face and push in with right hand while pulling pelt towards you peeling it off the back with your left. Your right hand will end up inside the pelt. Pelt should pull off the back up to the shoulders pretty easy. Pelt will still be attached on the belly. DONT start pulling from the back! Starting on the side along the ribs, pinch and pull the pelt loose from the rib cage. Work the front legs through- I usually just pull them without need of a knife. Next gently pull pelt loose from the belly from front to back. Then pull pelt over the head till the ears appear, cut the cartilage at the base close to the skull, continue pulling till eyes appear, cut the eyes and nose loose and then work pelt off his mouth.

Couple of tricks to make it easier- mount a vice grip to your bench and clamp the rats tail in it and pull each leg tight as you make opening cut from heel to base of tail on 1st leg then again on the other. Same clamp works well to allow you to keep tension on the pelt as you’re working on the ears and eyes- keep tension on the pelt by pulling it away from the rat with left hand as you are cutting the ears/eyes/nose with your right. Keeping it pulled tight is key to getting nice ear and eye cuts!

Hope you found something useful in my post!
Once you get the hang of it you’ll be peeling them in a minute or two.

Good luck!

Glad you got some fur sold. Yes time to start pulling more in. Good Luck. Keep up the hard work

Sounds like you have plenty of territory and rat populations. You are fortunate to have decent rat numbers. Now get a system worked out to suit your goals. The newspaper trick works very well. As soon as rat is removed from trap, slick it down nose to tail with your gloved hand to expel mud from the rat in and out of the water. Too bad you don't have newspaper as it works so well wrapping each rat to help dry rat which checking rest of traps then driving home. Then hang each one from a wire high enough so the dog can't get them. I do run a fan on them a few hours say overnight and they will be nice and fluffy the next day after you run a gloved hand over them.

Well brought a friend on the line today and was hoping for once to have something but it disappointed me again. The ice is already too dirty to see any bubble runs. Pulled 1 weasel box, 2 mink boxes, and a dry pocket set to the way north today since none of it was producing. The hut had a tripped off trap but no sign of anything else, the plunge hole was still open. Set a 110 in a run but the water was too dirty so couldn't see if it was close to the bottom or not, ice was 2-3" thick on the rest of the slough but in that run, it was maybe .5" to 1" thick at most. Set a weasel box and a mink box right by a culvert where I saw some sign. Mink pans for the 1.5 coils come today and put 3 of them on my bridgers before I fell asleep on the couch.

Keep at it, everyone experiences lulls.

That's the plan, I have to teach someone how to trap now. Going to pull all my traps tomorrow since it's going to warm up a bit this weekend and the ice was already a little sketchy yesterday. Found a spot for coons about 10 or so miles away. Off the main road so I'm able to use 220s. Going to set my few 220s in boxes/trails, some dogproofs, and maybe a couple of dirtholes till the ice gets better. Hopefully, I start catching some stuff so I can show this friend some catches and not just empty traps. He's riding along tomorrow as well.

Was a sad day pulling the remaining bits of the rat line. Got the bigger one in that conibear I set yesterday in the run and the smaller guy in the hut. No ride along today, he had to go do something at home. Bad weather, snow blowing in every direction, got into the slough that was lower in elevation and it was way less visibility. Going North it opened up a lot but the ride back South was a take it slow type of ride. I'm going to go set out some coyote and coon gear tomorrow since it's supposed to warm up for the next week or so. Already got those two rats skinned out, got a little bit more of the face this time, better than last time but still not the best. Took advice from my fur buyer and bought hook blades for box cutters and it's way better for the opening cuts, and way easier also.

Keep going and keep learning bud your doing awesome!

I admire your work ethic! That's what makes a good Trapper. Its not a secret lure or bait its about getting sets out in good locations and keeping them working. It is a great sense of accomplishment when it all comes together! Enjoy Each Day!

Thank you! It's a very big accomplishment when everything comes together after a week of not catching anything.

Thank you, going out on a guy's line with him. I met him when I went to buy some colony traps and it has just stuck.

Well, today was a doozie, I did my usual go after school Friday to set traps, and little did I know that my trapping spot drifted in severely. I got the truck loaded and headed out, luckily I had put a shovel and a couple of scrap pieces of 2x4 in the bed when I went to go pull traps because I thought it would be way worse than it was. I had started to travel to the spot and I was about a mile south of it when I saw the first small drift, nothing big about 1 foot. I continued down the road following a set of tire tracks from the guy before and went another .5 mile to .75 mile up the road where it was starting to get to 1.5 feet to 2 feet of drifts. I was taking it slow but not slow so I would get stuck and I round the bend in this road since it goes around a lake and it goes to 2.5 feet, then 3 feet, then the guy tracks run out. Where the guy stopped it was at least 3.5 to 4 feet of drift snow. I start backing out in 4 wheel drive and realize that I'm sliding so I try correcting it but just get stuck. I hopped out to figure out what was going on and I slid into the ditch grass where there was no snow to compact and keep me up and then the snow had packed under the running boards and behind all 4 wheels. I went to the bed and got the shovel, started digging, and when I was done. I threw the shovel in the bed and began to back out and I was good to go, I had to go forward a few times but other than that I was home free. It was not the most fun, I luckily didn't lose any trim or pieces of plastic. I had gotten stuck at around 4:05 and was out by 4:30 so not having much time to set when it gets dark around 5:30 so I decided to call it a day and go home.

All part of life's little moments. I'm glad you handled it and didn't damage your truck

Keep plugging away Youth Trapper. Sometimes that is all we can do. Enjoying your thread. Keep trapping

I'm glad too but it just made me realize that I should have probably walked the road before driving it, usually it doesn't drift in this early though.

Going to hopefully get out tomorrow and put in a few yote sets, maybe a few coon sets.

Well, today I didn't wake up until 3 pm for some unknown reason and slept through 5 different alarms. Still got out and put in 1 dirt hole with a duke 550 and 2 dogproofs. Hopefully, I have something come Tuesday.

[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/bxB720LJzi4[/video]

I got another dogproof and 1 step down dirt hole set today, baited with mountain man bait with a chunk of wool blocking it, and 40 below by Tom Krause as a call lure. Fox urine sprayed about 2 feet away on a shrub.


[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/V5FTjb1mmj8?feature=share[/video]

That's good stuff Youth Trapper! Keep plugging away experimenting with stuff...its like taking trapping instructions but Ma' Nature is your teacher!