unitsngold
Trap a Coon in a live trap? I hope you never have to TRY to release it.
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unitsngold
Trap a Coon in a live trap? I hope you never have to TRY to release it.
Releasing animals from cage traps Is easy. We've released a few coons a groundhog and a dozen skunks
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Unitgold- the trap shown is a “dog-proof” or “dp” trap which has brought big changes to catching coon, especially in areas such as around farmsites and residential acreages where there might good numbers of cats and dogs. DP inside lever only allows for an animal such as a coon and maybe an possum that can grip with its front paw to get caught, although some designs the lever is also a “push” instead of just a “pull” and skunks and even fox can get caught in them. They are also fairly fast to set up so if a guy wanted to lay out a bunch of sets primarily for coon and could front the initial cost (these cost between $10-15 depending on make and if they’re new or used) he could. Then again, a person would be primarily tied to just one critter’s market instead of a more generic leg hold set that can get multiple target animals such as coon, fox, coyote, maybe bobcat if the area has them, as well as less valuable critters that are regionally widely spread such as possums and skunks. All are generally attracted to similar lures and baits.
Sawmill…I’ve heard good things about the .204 round and if I was in the market for another varmint taker, I would probably buy one. My main varmint getter is a .22-250 which I can also use (with a heavier load than a standard varmint bullet) as a back-up for shooting deer and antelope (at least in my conditions—we don’t have many trees or other brush to deflect shots). I also have an older .223 semi-auto that I don’t get out much and don’t have the best optics on but it certainly could pop yoters if I ever got it really tuned up.
Last edited by DakotaRog; 01-11-2015 at 10:47 AM.
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I've been wanting to try a .22-250 as well. But money is tight and its not in the cards. I've been getting more and more comfortable with the 204--its got a Zeiss scope for my tired eyes but I need to put a few thousand more rounds through it before I think I will be where I need to be. Just got back into shooting in the last 5 or so years after spending years in the 'burbs where firing a pellet gun in your back yard would get you tarred and feathered.
Both of my boys use .223's and quite like them.
But the bore size seems to go up each time we see one of our critters damaged by a yoter. I'm sure we need a .338 or a .50BMG for the next one!! Although Tannerite is another idea...put some bait on a box of that stuff.
J.
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Lack of scent control limits my trapping. The strategy of choice now is spot lighting, dogs, or luck.
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I have never trapped, not opposed to it as long as it's legal. I'm certainly not a tree hunger by definition, I do believe all resources need to be managed. Growing up hunting just about everything and eating what I killed, I have come across my fair share of poached and wasted game (Doe with just hind quarters cutoff!). From what I'm seeing there's not enough hunting going on, with some species actually becoming to numerous.
On a side note I live just 38 mile from downtown LA, The biggest raccoon's I ever saw are in my backyard every night, we have possums everywhere and coyotes are just about out of control. I laugh at my city neighbors who want to get rid of the stray dogs that keep jumping over the walls into their backyards (mountain lions). Sometimes people forget what was here before the people came and how a lot of people used to and today still live!
Last edited by bigburtchino; 01-12-2015 at 08:40 AM.
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After seeing the title I imagined wild running teeth and dentists in hunting camo.
Microfibers are clogging fish intestines in the Great Lakes: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/scientists...004945198.html We might see a microfiber ban. An end of all synthetic fibers and strong return of the fur industry could be a long way off but now is never too early to start practicing skills.
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Big Burt- You might like a book called Ecology of Fear (basically a slam on so. Cali living). There's a chapter in there about the state and fed gov attempts (or actuality) of removing most of the major predators from that part of the state. I think many current So. Cali-forians would be surprised that the bear on the state flag really did stand for something and it wasn't the black bears up in the San Gaberials...
Many of the furbearers are generalists and also "edge" animals that do well with several different habitat ajoining. Far more coon in South dakota now than was ever documented historically. I suspect that if people disappeared from the U.S.-48, it would be raccoons and coyotes that would rule the former metro areas that started off having some sort of vegetation(lawned and treed neighborhoods), with skunks and possums being their minions. Maybe their main enemy would be packs of dogs gone feral. It would be interesting to watch...
And yes, hobo finds, many trappers find beaver outstanding table fare (I have selected my words carefully here). I'll leave it at that.
What are you running for dogs? I'm toying with picking up a pair of Red Bones. Did a ton of Rabbit hunting over the years with Beagles, but lost my last one this past summer. My daughter is convinced at this point that we have to get Red Bones and go after Coons.Originally Posted by unitsngold
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Here's a little story about "curb side shopping" fur style. "Stinkbait" (because he loves catfishing) is also a part-time scrapper, has a country place where we catch some coon, and is a free lance mason worker. I'm currently trapping 2 farm places for raccoon although the action is hit and miss because of the cold weather and the season is getting near the end (the fur quality will start declining in the coming weeks to a month, although our northern coon seem to keep their fur good longer than less cold places because they're not as active through the winter, at least my opinion).
The coon vexed me last night at the hay farm. No action there since Sat. and then 2 out of the 3 dps in action but no scores. The one in the granary that I had mini mellows and grape flavored jello powder in it with a golf ball on top to keep out the mice, had the golf ball off and the bait cleaned out but no movement of the trap. I re-baited with some fish kebble just enough to cover the trigger. Abouy a 100 yards away in the back side of the hay barn, the coon must have gotten a single toe caught and was able to pull out. Wrapped some of the baling plastic around the stake. Re-baited with kebble and grape gelatin powder. No action of any kind at Thor's place.
On the way to Thor's a saw a still "decent" road killed coon but was running really late to work so I called Stinkbait who I knew was still home. Told him where it was. He got that one and then on the way to his current work site, he picked up 2 more (all within 10 miles). Someone called him in the afternoon about another one and he grabbed that one on the way home. He just about got another himself tonight but was a split second too late. Fur still looks good to me with no rubs although the one has a black patch when brushed a certain way. A couple just clipped, a couple others will be joys to skin but not a bad day picking up the pieces...
P.S. The coon weighed between 11-17 pounds, pretty average for around here.
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The two big North American fur auction houses (both located in Canada) recently had sales and as with scrap, the prices and the clearances where pretty rough. From crazy high prices in Feb. 2013 to a roller coaster ride in 2014 to the generally in the dumps (except western coyotes) for now. I cleared 40% of my coon at slightly more than a $14 average where the Sept. sale I had a $17 average and cleared 90% percent. And my coon are from the two most desired coon regions given all other conditions of size and quality being the same. Many more eastern and southern coon didn't even get an offer this time around. A number of factors going on that I won't go into right now but as with any commodity, things can be dynamic.
There are several trapping forums. One of the largest one is Trapperman. I'm not a member because its not my style but I do like to go over to read the threads about the big auctions sales. Any of you remember Apocalypse Now when Capt. Willard (Martin Sheen) kills Col. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) and Kurtz's softly says "the horror, the horror" with his final breaths?? Well reading the Trapperman post about the NAFA sale, it can be said "the drama, the drama"
NAFA Auction | Trapper Talk | Trapperman.com Forums
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Dakota,
I'm not familiar with the fur sales (trade?) jargon... "cleared 40% of my coon..." means "sold 40% of my coon...?" And how is the fur sold? It looks like your set of coonskins were separated into ...grades? sizes? and at auction only some of your grades sold....? How far do you take the processing of the skin prior to selling? Presumably it needs to be processed enough to not rot or degrade, but I thought getting a skin into leather took a heck of a lot of work...?
This is pretty interesting. Sorry about all the dumb questions.
Jon.
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Jon- No problem, there are no "dumb" questions if a person is learning.
A trapper can sell fur through 3 different outlets. "Country" buyers:
The first is the "country buyer" or a local person who buys wholesale. They are like scrap yards, a guy brings their items in and you get money (or a check that day). The advantages are a trapper gets money right away and may be riding the day to day speculative bubble and actually sell at a higher price than what might be paid at an auction months away. The downside, imo, is that year in, year out, a person will get less for their fur going country than selling retail at the international auctions. A person can also do less work if they want to because a trapper can sell to a country buyer the whole unskinned animal (called "on the round" or carcass), sell it skinned out but not fleshed of fat and other tissue attached to the actual skin (called "in the grease"), or skinned. scrapped, and dried (called "put up" or "finished"). Some country buyers have mobile operations where they'll send agents out from home base and have routes to buy fur. "Gronewald" mentioned in the Trapperman forum is probably the largest country buyer in the US and covers much of the Midwest out of their small town Illinois base. Being a country buyer can be a very risky adventure and the number of them have been going down over time. Sometimes they make out like bandits and other times if they're not careful it can be financial ruin. The bottom line for a trapper is that he is selling wholesale to a country buyer.
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Selling fur to the big auction houses:
If a trapper sells fur through one of the 2 big North American fur auctions, they are basically selling dried raw fur retail to the world minus the commission that the auction house takes. I'm a smaller part-time trapper and sold to country buyers because I didn't feel I had the ability to "put up" decent fur (especially fleshing fatty critters such as coon) until about 3 years ago when everyone made such a killing selling in the winter of 2013. Got tired of selling wholesale and learned how to put up fur properly. I've now sold in 5 auctions and in the last couple had a number of "select" coon skins which is the highest grade with the exception of the rare "super select".
There are 2 big auction houses; one is called FHA (Fur Harvesters Auctions) which is out of Thunder Bay, Ontario (I think?) and the other is NAFA (North American Fur Auctions) which is the largest and traces its roots back to the Hudson Bay Company. They are out of Toronto and just had the most recent auction talked about on the Trapperman thread I posted. I ship to them and I'm a member of their Wild Fur Shipping Council (I think that's what its called) that gives me some advantages (lower commission rates, free shipping, etc.).
A trapper gives the auction house dried & stretched raw fur. If kept in the right conditions (not overly hot, low humidity, out of direct sunlight for long periods of time) this dried fur will last a long time before its finally processed into tanned leather and fur. The upside of selling through the auction houses is that a trapper is selling retail to the world. The down side is that the auctions are not often and global economic conditions may have changed (such as the crash of the Russian currency with the falling oil prices) and affect the market by the time of the auction. Another down side is that a trapper doesn't get money right away, a minimum of probably at least 3-4 months from the start of the season to the first auction and the collection of the receipts. Or it may take much longer if a specific piece of fur goes through multiple auctions. Or a specific piece may never sell and is eventually disposed of by the auction house. I have a small coon skin that's under 24 inches in length (called "Large-Medium") that been in 4 auctions and hasn't had an offer and I doubt it ever will so I've learned that anything that small should be sold as a craft/novelty item.
Fur at an auction house is graded before its sold so the buyers know what the product is like. Its based on size, general handling, color, and geographic region (this doesn't mean all furs coming from that region are graded that region; its based on the characteristics of the fur, see my link below for raccoon). For coon, because the current market is mostly the trim trade for garments, big, heavy northern types, with bright colors (the lower numbers) are the most desired. Lighter weight coon skins are generally used for coats and such and the current market is weak and limited for that type of garment.
Here are how my 16 coons that were up at this week's market were graded:
RACCOON
LOT SIZE |GRADE |COLOR |CLR| QTY
116966 XXL *I 5 NTH, 1
116971 XXL SDA 4 NTH, 1
116985 XL *SEL 2-3 NTH, 1
117006 LGE *SEL 4-5 NTH, 1
117043 4XL-3XL SDA 5 NC, 1
117055 4XL-3XL I-II 2-3 NC, 2
117056 4XL-3XL I-II 2-3 NC, 1
117057 4XL-3XL I-II 2-3 NC, 1
117059 4XL-3XL I-II 4 NC, 1
117068 XXL *SEL 2-3 NC, 1
117076 XXL *I 2-3 NC, 1
117079 XXL *I 5 NC, 1
117115 XL *SEL 4 NC, 1
117122 XL SDA 2-3 NC, 1
117668 LM I-II-II 2-5 1
"SDA" means it was probably a select skin but had slight damage so was downgraded. "SBA" would be a I-II grade skin with slight damage. A class III skin would be a much more damaged or lower quality skin. I haven't had a class III coon skin for at least the last 3 auctions. The little "star" behind the grade is that this skin can be shown as an example to a buyer and I think be qualified as a "NAFA label" skin (not sure about that).
The individual skins are then gathered into "lots" from perhaps a few dozen or a low hundreds as for coon or much larger lots of many hundreds or thousands as for muskrats. In the lotting letter above, I had only 2 skins in the same lot. A buyer then bids on a specific price per skin but buys the entire lot. So if a buyer pays $15 for a skin and there are 400 skins in it, he pays $6,000. NAFA has a base price that they will start off the bidding on or will accept as a lowest price. If that is not met then a fur is "bought back" and tried to be sold again at another auction. If it sells at another auction it may be above that base price or the base price may have been adjusted given current global market conditions which might be lower. Like any commodity its a gamble.
As for my recent "clearance" of 40% that means I sold 6 out of the 16 skins for sale (not counting the dink one that will never sell). The remaining skins will be up again for auction at the end of March joined by another 4 coon skins that were sent in Jan. Anything I catch until I quit trying to catch coon in Feb. will be sent up in April and probably (then again may not) be offered at a June or even Sept. sale along with anything that doesn't sell in March. As mentioned in many of the Trapperman posts, there is a feeling by some trappers that with the current low prices, the auction houses either sell very cheap and clear out the glut of specific types of fur or destroy what's left over after March and start a fresh next year.
Either way, trappers and scrappers are sort of in the same boat right now, low prices on most items...
http://www.nafa.ca/trapper/Resources...09_Raccoon.pdf
Last edited by DakotaRog; 01-30-2015 at 08:06 AM.
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Selling to craft/novelty/taxidermy markets:
The last way a trapper can sell fur is to sell it to people who are not commercial garment makers. Some people will sell skinned out frozen non-tanned hides on ebay, especially for things not commonly found, such as a fisher or some sort of albino/piebald coloration. This is generally done in the winter and through fast shipping such as 2-day service. It can also have paperwork involved and care needs to be taken to make sure a person doesn't run afoul of state or national regulations and laws (the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will come after you if you try to ship outside of the country without proper paperwork--found that out personally with dried pheasant skins or if skins are taken illegally in one state and shipped to another--this only matters if your an illegal taker of wildlife).
A trapper may also find a person who will buy raw skins locally that make craft/novelty things out of them. Again care needs to be taken depending on state laws; some state make it illegal to sell raw skins to anyone who is not a licensed fur buyer, other states don't care as long as the animal was taken legally. One guy on my trapping forum has a buyer for all of his skunk skins that is much higher than typically what he could get through a country buyer or one of the auction houses.
Another option is for a trapper to tan a fur themselves and sell it on ebay or at some sort of local gathering (mountain men thing or such). Typically we call it selling "wall hangers". I've done this as well but it takes more work because you have to tan and stretch (make the leather soft) the hide. Its another option that I'll probably do with some of my skins this spring and summer for some small coons and a couple of badgers. How much such skins will go for is all depends on what someone will buy it for on ebay or some local gathering event.
Last edited by DakotaRog; 01-30-2015 at 08:19 AM.
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Dakota,
Wow...thank you for the detailed explanation. In a sense, its like the cattle auctions. Seems like theres a heck of a lot of grades/sizes of furs.
For the small fur you are pretty sure won't sell, can you ask for it back from the auction house? It might not be worth it, since it would be international shipping and kind of costly just to get a fur that is maybe $10. But if you had a dozen that won't sell....?
With the bigger skins, like cougar and bear--I assume they would tend to go to taxidermists rather than an auction? We have an overpopulation of cougar in my area. It looks like that there were a couple of sets of cougar kittens that were booted out by their moms this fall--yearlings?--and they are feasting on dogs and cats in this area. I got to take a shot at one that was harassing our horses about a week ago, but thats all it was--a shot. Must be slim pickings for them further back in the bush.
Again, I thank you for the detailed explanation. You really went 'over the top to clarify what happens!
Jon.
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Once an while, a few oddities larger critters skins are sold through NAFA and I suspect most go to taxidermy work. I'm pretty confident that a mt. lion skin could be sold if it was legally taken in BC but there would probaby be reams of paperwork. It could also probably be sold to someone here in the states but I'm sure both governments would take their cut (don't they always, the never ending hunger!). A guy would have to price in those kinds of costs.
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I haven't updated this thread for a while. I ended up selling half of my 16 coon skins I had up at the NAFA auction in late Jan. If I throw out the one dink I had that sold after being in multiple auctions, my ave. was about $14 a hide. This is lower than my 2 previous years of selling through one of the auction house but many guys didn't even get an offer for their raccoon in Jan. as the main buyer of NA coon skins, the Russians or the Chinese for the Russian market, weren't there or wouldn't start at what the auction house thought was an opening bid. So these hides were "bought back" (as half of mine were).
NAFA (the largest North American fur auction house) spun it that they were really waiting until their "big" sale at the end of March to press things. The smaller of the two big auction house, Fur Harvesters, is having their 2nd sale (also larger than their first) next week in Helsinki. The only real bright spot at the NAFA Jan. sale was the western (northern) coyotes that did very well. Other wild fur was either down or just didn't get much for bids.
So, over the next 3 weeks the true current condition of the wild fur market will take shape. NAFA sold over a million coon skins in 2014 so people are wondering if the Jan. or even lower prices will become the new "normal". Sort of like the speculation on steel. Has a new "normal" been reached? If my coon average went to $10 or lower, I'd probably take a break from going after them. Just not worth my (slower than most) time to finish them.
Next season (as this one is winding down) I might have to go in search for some decent muskrat numbers in SD (may have to camp out in Patriot 76's pole barn for an extended weekend !!) and get after the wild k-9s around here. I've missed out doing much of those for a while. Coyote and fox are a lot fewer than coon around here but quicker (at least fox) to put up and higher return on the effort. I'd like to trap mrats from home but I just don't see our wetlands filling up this year and without much water, there's not high numbers of 'rats. They are quicker and easier to "put up" than coon.
I haven't eaten coon for a long time but my 8th grader and me might have to cook some up tomorrow. I've kept some back legs off of some medium sized ones this season. Maybe I'll post a pix of our meal...
Last edited by DakotaRog; 03-07-2015 at 05:56 PM.
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In case anybody is interested, the smaller of the 2 NA big fur auction houses had their 2nd sale of the season this week in Helsinki, Finland. Overall, wild fur is down quite a bit than a couple of seasons ago except for western coyote that did quite well. Wild mink was terrible. Way too much ranch mink out there for wild to demand much. The larger auction house, NAFA, will have its 2nd and largest sale at the end of the month. Typically, its 5-day run is dominated by ranch mink. I have some fur up with NAFA so we'll see how it goes. I doubt I'll be buying multiple rounds for the entire house (what kind of beer does SirScrapLot drink??)
http://www.furharvesters.com/results...ch/mar15us.pdf
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I haven't updated this for a while so I thought some might want to know what's going on with wild fur.
I should have brought up the news in early April after the 2nd NAFA auction got done but besides the western coyotes (some guys had $100 averages) most of the rest of the action was pretty disappointing. From record highs in Feb. 2013 to low prices and low clearances, most wild fur stunk because of a number of reasons (sort of like steel for scrappers). The Russians mostly sat on the sidelines (major buyers of NA raccoon) and the Chinese are always trying to cut corners and get the best deal (they spent a lot of cash in Feb. 2013 that they didn't recoup as quick the following retail season and pledged not to get burned again). Muskrats had been at great to record prices for about 4-5 years but are coming back down to more normal as the Koreans (who had been the main buyers) are letting the Chinese be the middle men now to do the preliminary fur cutting and thus have less desire to pay the high prices per "rat".
The smaller of the 2 big NA auction houses has their 3rd sale this week so we'll see if the trend continues. NAFA (where I have my furs) will have their 3rd auction right before the 4th of July. Pleasantly, NAFA's 3rd auction last early Sept. cleared out most of my remaining coon (heavier northern coon tend to bring the highest price as most raccoon fur ends up in garment trim in Russia and China). The early spring NAFA auction I had low clearances (good prices on the few that I sold) for my coon. Now I have more of them up there so hoping for a repeat of last Sept.
This season I'll probably throttle back on going after coon and try to get more yotes and fox (our yotes colors and fur around here are in the medium range so don't get the high prices). I'd love to get into a few days of open water mrat trapping but we just don't have much for numbers around here because of the roller-coaster of drought, recently high prices, land use change (some marshes now become full blown lakes because of altered land drainage off of farmland), and maybe even some sort of disease. May have to do a road trip further north first weekend of November...
Here's a note from NAFA after the last lackluster wild fur auction:
Beaver and Raccoon Results Test Our Resolve
By Herman Jansen, Managing Director
April 2, 2015
For those of you that shipped coyote, sable and female fisher to NAFA for our March sale, your results should bring smiles. For those of you that shipped us raccoon and beaver, your patience is wearing thin, and this is understandable. Nevertheless, supporters of NAFA and the WFSC should be proud that all of our past and collective wild fur promotion efforts have helped maintain and grow the market for sable, fisher and coyote.
Five years ago, very few people in China knew the word fisher. This week in our sale, it was China that bought nearly all of the female fisher. The results were uneven because the Chinese buyers were not as interested in purchasing the males, which we partially withdrew. The point is, however, that without proper wild fur promotion, we would never have sold the Chinese manufacturers and retailers fisher, sable and other wild fur articles.
Raccoon is a more difficult article for our Chinese customers. It is too bulky and the skin too heavy to make jackets for the smaller Chinese ladies. A few years ago, we were selling strips that were put on ladies boots, but that fashion trend has ended. We need a new major raccoon campaign. NAFA’s promotion department has been successful in getting a number of the Italian fashion houses to buy sample quantities in our sale, which resulted in comparatively high prices in some selected qualities and colours. As with the coyotes, once we have the leading international fashion industry supporting and buying this article, young people around the world will follow a new fashion trend. Many potential customers in North America and Europe still look at raccoon as a non-desirable fur item. In North America, this is partly due to the raccoon’s urban habitat.
For the remainder of this selling season, we see the market potential of the fashion industry, the trim trade and Russia coming back later in the year. This should allow us to sell larger quantities of raccoon at the price levels that we established in our March sale. It is too early to change the price integrity – we will need to be patient.
The Russian ruble has stabilized over the last 3 to 4 weeks at around 57 rubles to the U.S. dollar. Hopefully, Mr. Putin will find it in Russia’s best interests to stay away from further Russian aggression and look after the Russian economy.
Overall, the fur market, which is 85% ranched mink, has done well because of the incredible Chinese demand for mink. NAFA will continue to look at every possible way to expand the wild fur market worldwide. In the meantime, as I have already said, we will all need to be patient with an article like raccoon because just dropping the price will not benefit our producers right now. It is the job of your auction company to maximize your return and we take this responsibility very seriously.
Last edited by DakotaRog; 05-31-2015 at 06:33 PM.
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