Skinning beaver on the go

I spend the weekends of the rifle deer season a couple hours north of my place. I hunt deer sunrise/sunset and run a small beaver trapline midday. My truck bed is usually full of my hunting and trapping stuff and I have been skinning my beaver on the tailgate.It is the most convenient place for me to skin. For some reason, skinning beaver is much bloodier than anything else I skin and it ends up on my stuff in the truck bed. Is there any tips or tricks you guys can give me for skinning on the go?

A lot if paper towels And try to leave the head till the end as that's where most of the blood comes from.

Take the paper towels as soon as you have a bleeder and stuff ly over the refer.

Fresh beaver bleed.
I skin them at camp or at home after brushing the fur and leaving them lay on their backs on a chunk of carpet.I leave them lay in cool weather(fall) for a couple days.This will dry the fur,stiffen up the fat and let the blood coagulate.This makes clean skinning much easier and also a better finished product.
Beavers handled this way rarely if ever bleed much at all unless you leave them lay too long.You want to skin them before the rigor leaves the carcass.
If you have to skin fresh beaver make a skinning trough or frame out of 1inch wire mesh,that way the blood wont get on the fur and you can put a few rags or a pan under to make cleanup easier.

Hanging beaver to dry also promotes bleeding.

I process my beaver for food, and my wife really doesn't like the blood all over the countertop. On the last one I did, I did my first cut up the belly like usual, and then skinned just enough around the neck/head area, and then cut almost all the way through it's neck and let it sit in the sink propped up so the blood could drain. It worked really well, there was a lot less blood. That may not work for your purposes, though, if you're doing it on your tailgate.

I’m a novice, but dealt with the blood last year in my shop by skinning the beavers on their back on the table until I got down to the neck, then hung up over a bucket with a snare nailed to a rafter, looped around base of tail. I also got the meat and castors off while the beaver was hanging.

If I was in your shoes I’d start skinning on the tailgate then hang from a limb for the neck/head area.

Not to hijack the thread, but how do you deal with storing the pelts while you’re camping like this for a few days? I’ve been toying with a few day deer/ beaver trip in the UP this fall, and not sure how to deal with the pelts hanging around for a few days, other than hoping for good cold and freezing them on the spot.

If the weather is cool,skinned beaver pelts will keep for 5-6 days no problem.They need to be skinned promptly,fur dry and kept cool.
At the trapping camp some trappers here dig a hole in the cold ground,line it with boards/wood big enough to keep a good sized metal box like an ammo box,then cover with a thick layer of moss.Make sure water doesnt come up in the hole.(high water table).Its good for keeping food also in the fall as stuff wont freeze or get warm when temps fluctuate above and below freezing during the day and night.

If your are packing all your equipment in the truck make yourself a small fold up saw horse with a small table top for it. Skin them on that and not your pick up tail gate. The weather here sounds like it will get cooler next week. I have big coolers I use when I travel to hunt for the meat. Get yourself one of those and fill it with ice before you leave to hunt.

I’ve only been trapping beaver for 3 years and so far I’ve had cool weather. I let them get dry as possible and then they go in the big cooler. Got the biggest cooler made by ORCA so I have a divider in there. Food/ice on one side, fur on the other. Unless I get a deer then venison care trumps the fur. Luckily, the weather has been on my side so far. If you’re planning a longer trip - When we hunt out in SD and ID, we haul an enclosed trailer with a chest freezer loaded with ice. Plug in the freezer at night.

I use a fish cleaning folding table I got from cabelas it’s got a recessed spot on it that hold beaver well and has a drain on one side
I think I gave 50 for it on sale

Try one of those plastic snow sleds to skin or put carcass in. I use sled for dragging deer & beaver out of woods.