How to skin Beaver

B

BeCoole

Moderator
I skinned a beaver last year that was caught in a conibear trap. After being in the cold water for several hours, that animal was harder to skin than anything I have ever seen. Any clues on how to make skinning these critters easier?
 
You dont skin beaver, you have to cut the hide off. Need a wetstone to keep your knife sharp.

Use to trap beaver with I was younger. Toughest thing to skin. (or cut the hide off). Then you have to scarp all the fat, meat and tissue off.
 
You dont skin beaver, you have to cut the hide off.
Click to expand...
:D
LOL, Kraig. That's a perfect description.
By the time I got that hide off, I was wore out and the skin looked awful from my cuts. Took a couple hours doing it.
 
Scorch, will you do readings for us? :D

I knew I was in for it before I posted this, but man, I had to ask anyway. It's a helluva job getting one of those critters skinned.

I'll just have to put up with the comedians!:rolleyes:
 
They way I learned from the Athabascans is they use moose bones cut flat lengthwise and sharpened with a bevel edge across the width of the end.

They then lay the beaver on its back. Cut lengthwise from top to bottom and cut the skin back enough to grab and then hold the bone in your fist and strike downward between the skin and fat. It'll separate the skin from the carcass and flesh it at the same time.
 
Showing restraint.......

<talking to self>
Don't say it.... Doooooon't say it...... Moderators will ban me......
Do nooooot say it........ :p
 
I trapped when I was a teen (around the time dirt was invented) and I never liked skinning a beaver. The best way is to take it to somebody that has the patience and enough money to give you $25, let them skin, flesh, and stretch it, and go waste your time trapping and skinning easier animals to dehide. I always made more money off muskrats anyway; coons aren't all that bad, and mink and otter are where the money is.
 
BC,

My dad ran a little country store while I was growing up in the 1950s. There was an air compressor in the toolshed, and one of our regular customers was a part time trapper. When he got a beaver, he would come by with it in his truck. In preparation for skinning it, he would cut a small slit in the hide on the inside of a leg, insert the nozzle of the air hose, and inflate the sucker. Seems that helped separate the hide from the carcass and made the critter easier to skin.

So he said anyway...

Thanks for the memory, that was a long time ago.

hth,

lpl
 
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