Lynx, what the heck is Mike tyson doing in a cat stretcher post?

It seems like guys that held their cats this year and sold late did better than the early sellers. A 100% turnaround from last year.

Lynixe,, you just gotta slow down a bit,, i go through this same hyper stuff with the grandkids

Yes, perfect, that second picture is one from the other post. Now measure it for length, take it off that board and put it on a normal one please.

OK.... just did.. virtually IDENTICAL... notice the narrow'd neck...

The stretcher...and SAME CAT out and in..


The same cat stretched "pointy style"... before/after..NOTICE the color is MUCH BETTER with the NM stretch...

The left NM cat brought 1125.00 when RESTRETCHED NM style... was only offered 375.00 NV stretch (note right pic of the cat) JUST the facts maam...

Is all the extra wood in the cats mouth so you can manipulate the board off the dried cat?

I guess nothing more need be said then. Go directly to NM to receive your reward

YUP... like a belly board..a TWIST and the center boards come out allowing you to remove the two halves... HOWEVER understanding how RESILIENT Nevada cats are... I'd skip the center pieces...

I think you can make (or lose)as much or more length on how you skin the cat than what board you use.

If you skin into the white on the inside of the color line (back legs) you can gain an extra inch or two easy.

If you take a couple of stitches down the side of the tail you can get another inch or two.

It depends on the size of the cat but it's quite possible to get 2-4 inches on a smaller cat and 4+ inches on a bigger cat without having to stretch them narrower.

Conversely I've seen cats at the sale that have big brown patches on the inside of the back legs that should have been extra length on the hips.

Joel

Thanks Steve, thanks Joel. Lynx, still trying to decipher your post. Maybe after coffee.

I will again be bringing cat boards to the Western in Nephi. They are based off the Illchik style boards. Will have both small and large cats boards. Adjustable with tail boards. Also designed a board for Tracy Truman for the grey fox, and will have some of those as well.

ColoradoCat does good work and his boards are the right dimensions. That gray fox board is particularly suited for some of the smaller western silky gray fox.

NDLongliner, I too use the boards like Tom Krause and love the way the cat is presented and since my NAFA average on NE cats this year was $340, the international buyers like the way they turn out also. Our bobcats are not the highest calibur (and certainly not the lowest) but since I went to the Krause board system, I have routinely done $$$$ better.

Mark

Just as wildcatman pointed out, some stretchers are just to thick in the neck and you can't get a proper stretch on average and smaller size cats. If you can't get the head and neck on correctly, you will just loose length on the cat. Several board sizes are needed to do it right. One size does not fit all with cats and their variations from 10 pounds to close to 40.

coloradocat, what type wood are your boards made out of?

Guys, you can make extra money off good cats putting your fur up correctly.

Steve,

I make mine out of poplar for a couple of reasons. One is, it seems with basswood over time they want to go south on ya from sucking up the moisture from the hide. Guys will complain that they are hard to put pins in because of the harder wood. I think coping with the pin bit is a good trade off to having to buy new boards every few yrs. And second, the guys that want basswood, I cant buy it cheap enough to make it worth while to sell to the fur harvester. Just for the fact that it is so expensive out west. Ive sold a bundle of them to one of them to one of Pappas's buyers and he has had zero complaints.

And FWIW, the NV will know. This style of board had the TOP Cat at the Fallon sale.

They sound like good boards! I agree with what you said. I broke up and threw away 2 basswood stretchers after this season myself. They were just twisted and warped beyond use anymore. I'm pretty sure that putting fur on the boards fur side out right at the start contributes to this somewhat. But I have no intentions of not doing it! It just saves to much time. And I use nails instead of tacks so the harder wood is not an issue with me anyway. More than one way to do anything, to each his own

Here is what I use. Same that Tom Krause has in his book. Can stretch the biggest coyote down to the smallest cat, coon, badger,ect. all on the same board. REMEMBER; on cats alway keep at least a 7 1/2" Minimun in width on the smaller ones, then let the length be what it is. On larger ones, pull the base of the tail down to and see where you are in the grade scale. If you can't get the next length, let it go back up to just over the the next shorter standard and take the rest in width. Gives more square inches of white.


Check this out:http://coyotesrus.proboards35.com/index.cgi?board=talk&action=display&thread=1204060293

At the moment it is on page 4. Barn, Bubber and Me