Lugnut - glad you found your “missing” fox. Just a case of scanning that isn’t quite finished.

Blue mink - ??. One thing that comes to mind is - early caught, thus blue leather. But that is a thought, though not sure what else it could be.

There is a time when the mink are priming quite fast. It has grade 1-11 but the leather still has a blue tint. It can be a 3+ day period the leather is in this state, living just north of you it is around the 4th to 10 November with those Red River mink....it is a good grade
Frost Dried at -40c the white hide makes it harder for the grader to pick this up, a fine two thumbs rub with the rump fur grade detection finds under fur to guard hair density quality......another point of having a good inspection area of mink

I'm just wondering if Dirt & Mud are in related. Seems like they have a lot in common.

Dave Bosma talks about this in his video, can’t fool Dave!

[/quote]
if these are the ones shown in your ytube clips it takes a mid Dec rat to make it into a Grade 1-2 and your were earlier than that
as they are grading if all the same they end up in the other 1200-1400 rats in that lot....rats are handled once....it is like a Vegas card dealer in the rat grading area..shake for leather texture, ..flip the tail and deal to the bin..done in 7 seconds
That Red River boarder separates the beaver grades....and you do see the hair quality change with the alkaline waters and genetics of the western beaver. The under fur also does not matt the same as eastern beaver for the felt trade[/quote]

Thank you for watching but if you have watched multiple years, I trap the same time period every year (I may have trapped close to a week later this year) and still end up with some selects and #1 grades every year and that is with 1/3 as many rats as this year. I also thought I had a better collection than normal with less damaged rats as a percentage of the overall catch but my grades don't show that.

I understand that my beavers aren't the same as Muds beavers. My beavers typically have longer silkier guard hairs and are always lighter in color than the beaver I have seen caught in central MN. I am okay with my grades on beaver as they are about the same as they are every other year. Not the case with the muskrats.

Tanks for the explanation on my mink. Can't seem to catch mink so I don't have a lot of experience with the grades. I would say that it probably did have a little of a slate colored leather.

They're the same, it's just a matter of moisture content.

not sure if related or not but i do know they contrubute more to this site in a week than you hecklers and smirkers do in a lifetime combined! wonder why people are leaving this site in droves?