How do you tell before dispatch? I was told that only the big ones will be good on opening weekend but would like to know how you tell without skinning? Opening weekend is this Saturday.

The warmer it is the bluer they will be, as it gets colder the whiter, they will get

I can’t give a positive answer, but it seems to me that the blue coons have a wooly looking, thinner fur, whereas the prime ones have more of a winter coat look/ feel. Like you mentioned normally the larger coon seem to prime up first.

One thing to look at and you'll probably need to pin the animal down to get a good luck is to see if the guard hairs are straight and shiny. Look ay the back legs as they are what prime last on the coon.

Size wise, your 15#+ coon ought to be close. Anything under will probably be closer to Thanksgiving if not later. If you have a female and you can tell she's been nursing, she'll be blue till Christmas if then.

i usually dont try to catch any coons till the first of december. all around here are pretty much good by then.

if i do catch a blue it just get tossed.
if i ever got caught releasing a coon by my landowners it would for sure be my last time there. guarantee......

Just wait till they prime up in November before trapping them.
You can still catch "blue" leathered fur any time of year but the vast majority will be good if you wait to trap during the prime.

X2 - Wait til the 10th of November and most all them will be good. (or as good as they are going to get)

Length of daylight getting shorter is what starts furs priming.

Mink ranchers would look in the pens around pelting time. When they are ready they shine. Too early they look “dusty”. Coon are similar, in this country they are finished til thanksgiving.

THIS

Yup. Just wait a couple weeks before starting.

Any caught now are blue. Primeness is the absence of light, not temps.

My rule of thumb has always been as follows:
1. Coon caught before November 1st are going to be close to 50% unprime UNLESS they’re over 23-24 pounds. If you’re going to be in the water trapping before November 1st, you’ll find your coon are small and definitely unprime.
2. Coon caught between November 1 and about the 10th will be 75/25 as far as the percentage that are prime. The bigger ones will be the best.
3. Coon caught after November 10th, will be 90% prime, meaning the little ones probably won’t prime this year.

This is just my rule of thumb, and I live in southeastern MN. Your situation will be different if you live a couple hundred miles north or south of me.

Prime, to me, and my buyer(s) is when all the colored fur is completely grown out of the under fur. So, if you hold the pelt and blow straight into the fur at the base of the tail, all you should see is the under fur without colored strands in the mix.

Used to be a 'little blue' on a 'coon wasn't such a bad thing.
Times have changed. . .

Personally, I think it's a bit of a racket. If a coon is fully furred, it being a bit blue will not affect the finished product enough to matter.

By product of mass grading and the shear amount of coon available. Easier to train graders to look at the leather for prime and checking the window for heaviness and color.

If your area of MN is similar to mine in WI and you start trapping the last 10 days of October more than likely about 6 out of 10 coons will be YoY or females with litters and a high percentage of those will be blue if not some even black. If you plan to release all those you suspect to be not prime I would wait a couple weeks, catch fewer coons but coons further along in the fur primeness process. There are trails or places where older males and bachalor females travel and you can find those many times as side trails coming into the majore trals that family groups are using. Takes some time but you will harvest a hilgher percentage of better furred and larger coons.
I did that for the first two weeks of one of our seasons back in 2006 and yes I caught a much better percentage of better coons but about 1/3rd the coon the prior two years setting the hotter trails.

Bryce

It's November 11th. Start trapping !!!!

I am surprised no one has chimed in with a smart aleck remark so I guess I'm elected, LOL "a blue coon will be between the colors of Green and Indigo on the electromagnetic color scale with a wavelength of 440 to 495 nm". I know ---- its just me being my stupid self and trying to make science a little more fun. .................... the mike

Now thats funny, thanks some humor is a good thing and especially during times when our efforts are rewarded by everything but financial.

Bryce