Groeny bought my coon !!!

Sold some coon last Thursday, the 16th of January, 2020

to Gary Gronewold on his fur pickup route in Adams, N.Y.

These were smallish coon my Landlord shot out of his barns on November 11th, 2019.

They were green, skinned, and fresh frozen. cleaned, combed, and dry.

Prices as follows :

One @ $1.00

Four @ $3,00

Four @ $5.00

Two @ $10.00

$53.00 total at a $4.82 average.

Down the road with a good check and I didn't get NAFA'ed !!!

That's what happened.

w

Can someone explain why he doesn't come to PA?

walleyed. Approximately when were the coon caught? Before 11/10 or after.

Appears shortly after the 10th of november, but prior to the 12th of november.

That’s a lot of shooting for one day

They weren't caught, they were shot on the 11th of November by my landlord.

I just skinned and sold them. I wasn't present when they were whacked.

w

paperwork

bbvkbgjdch.kjhj xng gslj.nnnlknbncfxclkhcgv ----to you too

They were routed from his dairy barns by his Feist Squirrel dog and gunned down.

Year before his shot 18 in one night.

Some years they've done even better.

Guy owns a couple dozen barns and silage bunks.

Stop vandalizing my thread with your mindless graffitti !!!!

w

i was speakin Dirt,its a dialect of coonman i think/

Dirt,

Is that what you rub on your rectum after you sell your

near worthless American Marten/Alaskan Sable ?

w

P.A. Fur is only slightly less desirable than Alabama Fur.

w

walleyed, that stuff is getting hard to find since the mink ranchers started using it.

Not True,

Gibb, Boco, and the WFSC is giving out a tube of that potion with every

re-newed membership in place of the FREE Raccoon DVD.

w

Now that’s funny!

That's looking up for green skin prices

Yup,

I'm gonna run out and buy another 100 D.P. traps

to close out the coon trapping season !!!!

w

Ha!

Obviously,

That was a ball bust, Lug !!!!

w

Wow, there must have been dancing in the streets out east.

P.S. Does Mr. Gronwold know you're the famous "walleyed" from trapperman...? That may have helped your average. Mouthpieces can be worth some advertising costs... ..

I don't think I could brag about getting a $4.82 dollar average on coon. Even from Groney. Were they really that bad. You maybe didn't get NAFAed, but I am pretty sure you got Gorneyed.

Technical term. Rat wagoned

Rectoderm lmao 😆

I bet the $10 greenies weren't "smallish"...

pickles

Good coon prices for area, similar to here, we have good quality coon

Good quality raccoons sell for $4.82?

You hillbillies...I’m not even going to say it.

JP- How do you define "hillbillies"...? Everybody south of the CAN-USA border, people that can't find a good deal selling fur for top prices such as you do at your fairs or wherever you you sell stuff at primo coin, or people who either can't get more money for their hides because they don't come from the top regions or willing to settle for low prices because they want to make a deal and move on with something else...? Just curious.

There’s many ways I could define “hillbillies”, and being happy and claiming and teaching that $4.82 is good money for good quality raccoons means you must be a hillbilly.

I don’t consider everyone South of the CAN/US border hillbillies. I know you’re not all poor.

how much you get for yours JP?

Down the road with a good check and I didn't get NAFA'ed !!!
Yes U did

Could have shot more than that at end of one cornfield when they finished picking

$25, I decided that wasn’t enough so I trap $130 coyotes now. I’m only here for the money.

Interesting. When do yours turn prime? Whats your average yearly total number sold? I'm not sure where MB is but how much does a non resident license cost?

Mark,

There was no bragging involved here.

Just reporting what I was payed for the

coon I presented at the rat wagon.

Whenever I sell some fur, I post on here

what I had and what I was payed by whomever.

Been providing my fur sales info on here since 2010.

It's up to you guys in the peanut gallery to pass

judgement & commentary on what happened.

w

Wow,

Didn't know I was famous on trapperman.

Did you give me that designation, NonPCfed ?

w

oh great,now he thinks he's famous.

Never could understand the thinking behind selling green or round. The closest I get to that understanding is this time of the year when I have a thousand coon, atwo freezers of coyote skins and a bunch of mink, rats, cats, fox and beaver I have to scrape. At the end of that I will have arms like Popeye and will smile as I triple the price those that sell green fur got. I will post my average and then let the comedy section start commenting on how that could be possible. LLL

Did you catch "The Bachelor" last night?

Try selling New York Eastern-Northern wooley type coon that aren't 3XL or larger that are put-up

in country here and NOT get payed anything for the put-up and you would soon change your tune.

Unfortunately,

we don't have western-northern Golden Triangle coon here and unless it is 4XL or 5XL you seldom

will crack the $10.00 mark here even if put-up.

Add to that we have a bad tick population here and In-country buyers love to ding you big time

for tick scars on the back of the neck.

In February, 2013 I got a $36.64 average for 50 coon at NAFA but that was a LONG time ago.

Until I get better compensation for my put-up work, I'll sell my raccoon green.

w

walleyed- you are famous, at least on tman, in my humble eyes. I still think you should bundle your yearly water trapping adventures and make a book out of them. I'm sure you could sell some.

Have you ever done ADC work in your area removing nuisance coons or is that even common in upstate NY to up one's average on those less-desired region critters? Or would you have to kiss the governor' multiple and regularly to be licensed to ADC work, and thus isn't worth the hassle?

I can remember when XL XXL coon was worth serious money. Now only XXXXL and XXXXXL get 10 bucks..And they better be the right color, peak of primeness.

I second that motion.

why would anyone want to read a 3 page book?

Yes,,but did you get your "free" gloves?

So your're not going to "third" the motion?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that If I put up my coon I can triple my money. So If I put up a $2.00 green coon I can get $6.00 for It.
So what about all those $2.00 and $4.00 put up coon, gee they must have started out green at $1.00 Or maybe .50 cents.

People tend to exaggerate. I preferred paying you $2.75 a coon so you get those Popeye arms. I'll work on my biceps doing 12 ounce curls.

Beav, ya need a calculator there buddy.

https://calculator.com/

and they lived happily ever after.

The state of Pa. seems like a fur selling desert. Very few local buyers today, no route buyers like Groney who travel here, and the PTA district sales don’t seem to command the prices that the Ohio Trappers Association sales do. There are FHA pick ups here.

I don’t think it’s so much that our fur is that poor in quality, it appears to me it’s all about the lack of completion from buyers .

I was shocked at the low prices at the various PTA District Fur Sales this year.

I was also shocked that trappers actually accepted those low offers.

I sold a sampling of pelts last month from/in Western NY to test the waters. The rats were from November (and one was damaged, the other was blue'ish), the coon were from early November and looked good. The reds were very nice (I was told I could get double for large males with claws). And I thought the coyote was average for my area (I'm not sure what the abbreviation is on the sales slip below). All in all, not complaining (it is sad that the fox prices are so low). I applied the fur money to supplies and got some discounts (and no shipping fees!).

Good luck with your fur!

Dino

i'm telling you guys we are at a huge disadvantage in PA and from everything i hear its mostly directly related to paperwork mostly.

you know somethings wrong when groeny aint here.

Yeah, especially after that thread Groney posted a while back asking people from different states who would like to see a Groney route in their state. More than half the respondents were from PA.

you know how long i've heard it from the other side,and still do.

heck,local has a buyer tag cause its easier than doing something with all those freezers of fur.and this will be his second year of retirement.

That is exactly right. How many $1 coon do they single out or no value? People leave them or take the 1.00.

Most of the value comes from a coon that measures slightly under a 3x green but scraped easily goes over that. If GFW offered you 3 or 4 bucks for that , you left 10 or 11 bucks on the table since a finished 3x heavy coon is 15.00 at GFW. You guys get caught up in the difference between green and finished but never think about those skins being downgraded because they don't make the next size. There are a lot of those. Some of those 1x coon are doubles finished also. There is how you triple what they are worth. If my averages are in the low teens and you sold yours on the rat wagon or elsewhere and average 5 or 6 bucks there you have it. I can finish 12-14 coon an hour. That pencils out to way more than most are making at there job or like others living through other trappers thru T-Man. lol, LLL

He gave you an extra dollar too!!!! His calculator must be broke.

Ha! I made out better than I thought!!!

Don't spend it all at one place.

may i suggest a buffet??

Do not do paid ADC work as the less the state knows, the better.

I help local farmers with problem beaver and coon in exchange for trapping rights on very extensive acreage

but I doubt they would pay if I asked them. It is all pro bono work done at my schedule but for no pay.

w

He does have that Ned Beatty figure. Now he also has something else in common.

is that the new NAFA top lot award and do they come with a free dvd??

Yeah, a "How to Put Up Coon" DVD!

Looks like a good business opportunity for someone to buy these coon if that price is way off.

if i buy next fall i believe it would be strictly green fur.a lot to see between now and then though.

You cant raise fur as cheap as you can trap it, and some species you cant raise. Lets keep catching a putting up cheap fur and see if we can pay them to take it off our hands. No way would I trap and put up coon for those prices. Yeah I catch some accidental and some I put up but to spend the time and money to catch them on purpose no way. We need to stop providing them fur at the ridiculous prices we are getting paid for it.

Wow where to start. I sympathize with you folks that have crappy fur. Having said that if you catch numbers you can still make decent money. You may just wait your way out of ever trapping if you wait too long. I would be willing to bet I make as Mitch as the average k9 trapper does this year and yes I have a pile of those too. Some people just don’t get that the North American continent is a big place and animals are not all the same throughout

I guess some peoples "decent money" is what other people call "getting screwed."

Decent money on coon Is around a $14.00 average.

BOHICA----someone had to say it.

and who's Mitch.

Mitch is walleyed-short for Michelin man.

How much time do we have in a $14.00 coon?

I'll give you your 5 minute scrape and board time. This does not include putting them in the freezer, taking them out of the freezer. Checking them for thaw. Getting the boards out, putting them away. Wiping the oil as they dry. pulling them off the boards, storing the hides again. Getting them out again to ship. Cleaning up the mess.

Then we had the skinning time. Cleaning the muddy ones, drying them out, combing out the burrs, disposing of the carcasses. Plus the skinning.

What about the trapping time. How much trapping time you got in each coon? Better be less than 15 minutes a coon. Bait getting time, trap prep time, setting time, travel time, pulling critters out of traps time, pulling trap time, and putting it all away time.

If I figured man hours like trappers my contractor would have gone bankrupt.

Whoa is Dirt,live where a fresh pickle is 23 dollars

The world is seeing about a 60% reduction in ranch mink volume and still there are issues in moving fur into the retail chain. Yes there are lots of mink in storage waiting for an opportunity to be sold. Ditto wild fur. Not so many years ago a million coons and a couple million rats could be sold for about 50-70% more than what is being offered today for far less then half the numbers that were sold 5-7 years ago. If we are waiting for what many call prices worth harvesting the wait could be longer than many hope it would be. Also if the new market for the near term is 200K of coon and 250K of rats we are in a totally different fur market then the last 2-3 decades. We may be seeing markets where 50-60% of the fur has such low value it is better off rotting in the woods then being brought out.That goes totally against the practice we have all held tightly that we salvage what we harvest. We don't build up better relations with the general public by being involved in an activity where half of what we dispatch is left to become beetle dung.

Bryce

I will be fine as long as I don't send them to NAFA. LLL

If we decentralize the fur market like it was a generation or two ago then we will all need to adapt to a whole different marketing procedure. The really big impacts of the international auctions in many cases was not the fur they auctioned off (wild fur) it was the base price or signal price that thousands of buyer used to establish their prices and species they would prefer. If that is gone or minimized the whole thing needs to start all over again. The further the buyer is from the end user the lower the price to the commodity producer.

Bryce

Very fair prices compared to what I've seen elsewhere. Hoot does well, I usually sell to him but decided to test the FHA waters this year. Nice job Dino.

walleyed is definitely famous and funny!

Dirt you figure it like a business man and that is the way it should be done. We are shooting ourselves in foot providing cheap labor and expensive gas to make a fur buyer, auction houses and retailers money. I love trapping but hang it up when I can't cover my expenses and make $15 an hour. A few years ago we could do that not the case now and things will not change if we continue to flood the market with fur. Trappers are a sucker for a love of labor.

A

Reality can be a real Buzz kill.

Groeny bought my coon, too. And my coyotes, and my cat, and my beaver.
I love to skin and finish, too, but I did not have the facilities or the time this winter to do that.
Still had fun though spending a lot of time with my sons running sets for the little 27 day line that we managed to sneak in among everything else going on in our lives this winter.
My local goenewald buyer is a great guy, and yes I knew I'd take a hit on carcass everything i was bringing to him, but he he and his wife run a business like anyone need to cover their costs plu profit for their business and i still had a great time.
Jim

not always about money,if it was i'd be spending my time elsewhere.

I would ask this simple question to those who think no money is in finishing fur. Why do buyers prefer to buy green fur or even carcass fur? LLL

So they have fur put up the way they like it put up
Seen a lot of crappy put up's
Just saying

How can they afford to pay someone to finish fur? Do you think Griz is going to skin and finish all your fur JabNE? Of course not. He pays someone and he is the middle man for GFW. Every time fur trades hands it creates another hand in the cookie jar so I am guessing there are a few cookies in that finishing jar?? I have sold over 15,000 coon over the last decade and have records of everything I have sold. Right now there is at least a five dollar bill more in finished fur compared to green. At least that. Not pushing myself I can finish ten to twelve coon an hour. That is including an extra minute each to take them off. I report every penny I make on my taxes so to say my math is wrong and that I don't know my cost/ input is insane. In full disclosure I trap in an area that produces the best coon in the WORLD and are the ones selling right now. Coyotes will sell very well also. This is old math not new math...LLL

I won't disagree. Lots of issues with buying green or carcass fur. If you have ever finished any and had a coon that looked good until you scraped it you would see the risk. Buying finished fur takes all the risk out. Even poorly put up fur shows the buyer what it is. No surprises. LLL

GFW has a machine that he said can flesh 2000 coon a day. Makes me think why would he pay a trapper $5 to flesh a coon when he can do it for far less?

Sure, he doesn't take the risk of hidden problems in green hides buying finished hides.

But somewhere in his math it made sense to buy a piece of machinery.

LLtrapper- I hope you and wife take a nice vacation at the end of the season, you deserve it with all that hard work. You are an iron man. I'm a slow skinner and flesher but enjoy seeing the finished product of a put-up hide. Keep on keeping on!!

Selling carcus coon for me hasn't been an option for quite a few years now. I was chastised when I brought in green and carcuss fur. When I was running big on the mink line and got 5 or more coon I would hold them for 2 days and take them in whole. I just love when your nicely fleshed and stretched coon show tick bites, slate, rubs, bites etc. All that work for nothing...….

i've put up fur for buyers for 30 yrs and believe i could do great buying green fur on my own but just couldn't pull the trigger.

also don't believe many will know i'm buying and would prefer to concentrate on green fur at auction.

I am going to put the money into a new pickup. Capital expenditure. Win again. LLL

I've seen Kevin's roll off charges and to haul carcasses away is pricey. If you being junk, it goes home with you not in his dumpster, hes not paying to haul your junk.
He also has to pay someone to skin.
Big difference in carcass to in the grease skinned prices and that is main reason

Jim

When he bought that machine coon were at a 45.00 basis. If he can buy green coon for 4 bucks and sell them for twenty out of the dress it proves my point. He paid for that machine by FINISHING coon. lol, LLL

Great Job!!!

I didn't trap many coon this year but the ones I sold went for a $14.00 nose count.

Hey LLL $5,000 toward a new Pick up Isn't going cut down on the total cost much. LOL

Hater Beav.

I'm just hanging around. I'm afraid to go out and check my CRs hoping I don't have any more BAD failures.

Are you using the crimp on or S link kind Beav?

$4.82 average? I/m just happy I don't have NY coon here.

But the animals still need managing so trap away.

Exactly--lotsa land owners don't know and could care less what furs worth.lotsa these folks have given me the run of the place for 30 yrs on some.

LIKE I TOLD A YOUNG FELLA I GOT STARTED TRAPPIN A COUPLE YEARS AGO TELL YOUR LANDOWNERS YOU ARE TRAPPING THE COON NOW THAT AINT WORTH MUCH SO IF PRICES EVER GO UP KEEP THE MONEY TRAPPERS OUT!

Bad math again there beav. LLL

What reality? I left out expenses and weather. I didn't want to deter any fun.

$5 dollars a coon huh? Maybe in the past when the coon market was better and Nafa was still a selling option but I dont see that in today's market where most guys are selling to a local buyer. For example, take the average guy (Not you lol) who has a couple hundred coon. He walks up to the rat wagon and is offered $6.50 average on his green coon. That price was common in my area THIS year. He dislikes the price so asks for his fur back. He decides he will go home and put those coon up. He puts all his coon up on wood to maximize size. He then goes back to Groney with those same 200 coon but this time he is offered only $9. Have not heard of many averages over $9 on finished goods THIS year. Anyhow, using your example he should have gotten at least $11.50. Who's right? IMO, this year it did not pay to scrape coons. Guys were not seeing averages on finished coons that were high enough over green price to warrant the extra labor, heat for the fur shop etc. The average guy maybe got a couple bucks extra this year on his collection of finished goods. That's what I saw and heard from a good number of coon guys in my area of Iowa. Myself, I sold green this year and got exactly $7 average. I asked my buyer what my set of coon would have been worth had I brought him finished coon and he told me $2-3 extra. That being said Larry, your a good at marketing your fur so maybe YOU can get that extra $5 a coon lol. Most of us cant, at least this year

Old Grant showed me that coon fleshing machine in action when they first had it, he was timing it on his watch. It was under 10 seconds per coon. It took more time for the guy to stack them on the cart than machine to flesh them. That was when they used what looked like a hog ring to close them back up.

Well like any outdoor venture, LLtrapper...great thing about trapping is that there there is some level of participation for everyone. Good for you to take it from start to finish. As stated, I didnt have the time or resources this year to skin or finish, and was quite happy to get what I got.
Thought I'd share a fur ticket from...oh...later 90s or so. All finished furs.
Wowzers, check out the crappy finished prices I received back then!!
Well, there are levels of participation for everyone. Yeppers, I've sold finished coon for $40 or $50 in great years, and finished coon for $1.00 in crappy years. One year I took in 44 finished coyotes and averaged $4.25 on the whole lot.
You are in iowa, I am in Southeastern Nebraska. We have great coon here, too. Coon are easy, coon are fun. Glad you do well on your coon, sir. Most years I do too...but not every year. Just like skinning and finishing, I get to some years, and some years I do not. Still go to grizz either way. Might try a direct auction some day, but will be a while yet. Trying to buy some land now, a nice home, and get my kids through school. When the world is down to just me and the Mrs some day then I'll maybe put a little more into my hobby, as I did in my younger days in 80s, but not now. It's just a hobby now.
Had a lot of fun though! It is still one of the best opportunities to be outdoors day in and day out running a line, and spending quality time with my kids while running traps too.
Anyway, I always keep stuff like this pic around to remind me of years when I dont care how many I would have piles up I would still have had a hard time showing a positive return. Other years, yes, one could certainly do a pickup load of coon no problemo and finished them to show real nice money.
Catching hundreds of coon a season is not difficult around here and some years not a problem for me to pull off either if I want to, done it before many times. But most years I have other things going on that are more important to me at the time, like this year.

Took a few days off right in middle of our little line to head out west with my son to go throw a bullpen for a coach and tour campus. My lefty senior kiddo ended accepting a full ride scholarship to pitch in college. Now that sir...that...was well worth snapping our traps and taking 4 days off right in middle of december when coyotes around here are at a real nice high and coon are abundant enough to cover gas.
Yes sir not having to pay for college...and a hard working son who put his time in and got to this level, then taking time off to go for a drive out west, I'll take that return all day long against my hobby.
Oh, here is my historic reminder of how thing's weren't always so rosy...

GFW is not the only fur buyer in North America. Also something some don't understand is nothing starts selling in the industry until March. I wonder where and when your friend tried to sell to him. I wonder when the coon were trapped. I also wonder how well they were put up and how they were put up. Lots of things can go down hill once you get a coon scraped. Even by the 3 dollar math I could live with 36.00 an hour for winter work. It pays waaaay more than some fellas get paid for opining all day on t-man. Got to get to work. Got 50 to scrape. LLL

You earn every penny putting up fur. No matter how good you are at it. I do it because there aren’t any alternatives.

Well again, good job, and good for you, LLtrapper. Thanks for your insight too. Seriously.
And please, I do respect your level of work and catches. I'm just not in a spot to do that lately but someday I'll get back there, especially when trying to break it down by hourly wage considerations. Heck with fuel prices, the standard IRS wear and tear on vehicle mileage rate, your food, your time, equipment costs, bait and lure, trap prep, , facility charges for space and turning the lights on, well it does all add up into the bottom line doesnt it. Heck haven't even factored in health care, retirement, FICA and other taxes, or any other of the usual employment benefits yet, for fair comparisons to hourly wages. Sheesh. It does all play in, doesnt it?
Anyway, nice work on the coon hauls and finishing. It's the right way to go when you can pull it off.
Have a great day sir.
How is your weather today? We got rain and snow here last couple days and into today. Freezes into sheet of ice overnight. Stay safe everyone.
Jim

Well LLL isn't too far off on the math. I sold some green coon for a 5.07 average. My finished coon brought 9.67. l can only put up 6 coon an hour on boards. That's still a pretty good wage. In my case I don't have enough freezer space to freeze all the coon I catch and Groeny only comes by once a month. I don't like finishing coon but I don't like the thought of trying to sell several hundred green coon at one time. Too many things against me. I can't refreeze that many at one time if I don't like the price. What if it's warm the day I want to sell. That only makes things worse. Leaving 4.60 per coon on the table in todays market is not something I want do at todays prices.

That's not tripling your money.

I do my fur up for a couple reasons-
Im already set up for it and have the equipment
Don't have freezer space
No options to go green or carcass
I catch so darn little anymore putting up fur doesn't drag me down like it use to.

I do like having the option to sell green on those late night/big catch days but those days are long gone...…..does it pay? it depends on who you talk to I guess.

In 1979, I sold carcass coon for $35. Workers at the fur shop made $1 to skin, $1.25 to flesh and put on wire. If I recall, the price difference back then between carcass and finished coon was about $3 for those who sold their fur put up.
Adjusting for inflation, that $2.25 the fur buyer paid for put up costs would be $8.02 today.

The price of the coon is a fraction of what it was 40 years ago, while the price to put it up would have risen over 300%.

I have not sold so you nor I know. Like I said I have kept very detailed records of my catches over the years and it is not just a small sample. My average season size is 87% 3x and larger with 12% being 2x. The doubles are usually very clean and well furred. The 1% of 1x are those who just did not quite make the double line and are always nice furred and best color. If you do a little figuring while you are not working and trying to figure out why I have to be wrong cause you cannot do something, you may be able to see where my heavy N,NC coon do so well. I scraped 22 in the two hours here and have every one of them 3x and larger. Go figure!! LLL

Yes, if a guy can earn $36 an hour finishing his fur then totally agree it’s worth the effort. And yes, there are more options then GFW, I did not sell to him this year. Changing the subject, there are times where putting up can actually cost you money. I had trapped some late December and early January coons after previously selling the bulk of my catch and decided to scrape those. Almost all were 3-5xl boars all chewed up and full of leather defects. They looked fine in the green but once scraped all the flaws showed. I would have been better selling in the green on those!

I wonder if LL figures in his extensive record keeping how much he made putting up coon to ship to NAFA last year. Somehow I think that should be a negative number. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.

Putting up what ya sold fur for is like throwing a bone in the middle of a pack of starving dogs. Lol

Dirt all the coon at NAFA we’re sold in the first sale. Lost no money there. They had a set of mink they stole from me. I consider mink as well as rats I catch just extra gravy. LLL

Coon were winners while NAFA is the real losers LLL

why??is something wrong at NAFA?

LL, you seemed upset that your check for 2 mink bounced?

Even if it was two, which it was not, they were mine. Not going down that rabbit hole. LLL

I KNOW, RIGHT ?

w

It took 5 pages till some common sense ringed in.
Walleyed you brought a fresh breeze of no-nonsence to this market report.
Now for some Minn coyote seller that sold but are too busy to post their sales receipt even though they have posted 50 times since then.

By the way! nice night's wack-a-dootle for some corn=-crib racoon shooting money, would have been worth it to see the dog action.