Good to put a face to the guy that killed our nutria market with his crap southern nutria!

Good to put a face to the guy that killed our nutria market with his crap southern nutria!

Look on the bright side im keeping several hundred beaver and nearly a hundred nutria a year off the market so it could regain strength, so you probably have me to thank for the current rise in the beaver price's, lol.

First nutria i ever saw in my life i shipped to NAFA and got a 6.00 high with a 4.00 ave. I thought id found a gravy train, next year couldn't give the things away.

None of that matters right now. What matters is every trapper on this forum should be submitting testimony to oppose this bill. Just because this is an Oregon bill does not mean it won’t affect you in another state. It absolutely will!

THANK YOU! And well said. Right now our side is winning the battle on the volume of mail going to the Judiciary committee opposed to this bill. Let's overwhelm them with opposition letters!

And now back to our regularly scheduled entertainment: "The auction results show".

The gloomy feeling I got when I saw how few buyers were in attendance proved to be well founded. This auction was not pretty.

But first the good news! My average for sold nutria: $5.77 Muskrat average: $7.77 (The bad news... only one of each was sold to a small time crafter).
I don't know if there has been a big shift in the high-end cat market, or it was just that there were not enough buyers. But I would guess that maybe up to half of the good cats on the sale didn't meet their minimums. The earlier pic I took of a table of nice cats were all "no-sells".

I sold 97 of my best beaver for a disappointing $26 avg. (Last year I would have been elated so it's all relative right?) These were about 80% blankets or XL's. I took home the rest that were offered even less. If I was a rich guy I would have withdrawn them all....but as an ol' Arky once said: "Brother, if it cost 5 cents to poop right now I'd have to vomit instead".

I think one buyer bought about 90% of the fur that sold on this sale. I'm not sure if he was able to get it all in his rig. Last I saw he was having a heck of time to get the last of it stuffed in his truck and still more fur being shagged. (That was George Kortum out of Montana).

I sold 11 western Oregon cats for mostly less than what I wanted but with no clear idea of what to do next with them I went ahead and sold them. $86 avg before commission. These would have graded at FHA as mostly lower-end westerns with C-D bellies.
Sold some otters ....but the main otter buyer was not in attendance as he had gotten sick a few days ago. The few I sold went to Doug who is a local member of the Modoc tribe for a $56 avg pre-commission. I lowered my asking price after first call to do business with him as I like the guy.

I imagine that some of the guys who had good cats on the sale will be on with their own sob stories at some point.

Thanks for the update. Buyers have been pushing the cat market all season. Tables look pretty sparse. Maybe bad weather ,maybe some buyers have filled their orders,maybe not enough fur to attract more buyers? You have to buy a lot of volume like George does to make it profitable for buyers. How many rats did you sell?

Sucks about the lack of buyers. Could be several factors - weather, out of money (a problem for many of the small craft type buyers), location (Klamath is off the beaten path for a lot of buyers, tough to make the long drive with low prices).

I’m glad Kortum was there but I have a feeling he took advantage of the lack of buyers. I feel sorry for the sellers that were counting on a good sale.

I guess I will remember the glory days of Klamath in years gone by.

That pic was taken at the end of the auction and the bare tables had already been shagged.

Also another sale going on at the same time in Idaho, plus the buyers who didn't have time to get back from North Bay.

I think you hit the nail on the head Carl. Timing is important, let us all know averages and highs when they come, please.

Not sure how many country buyers go to North Bay ? I know George goes sometimes and he is there.

A bunch go. Or have a representative there for them (broker).

Not many have the energy George does. I believe Gary (Moscow) wasn't there because he had been up to North Bay...may have been others as well.

Several of us were up there
I can count Atleast 9 western buyers that were present at Fha

We had 11 fur buyers in Idaho yesterday and 3 others that only bought craft items. I wish there was someway to only have one sale a weekend.

Thanks for the intel!

you cant blame the buyers for going to FHA.. you can buy there alot cheaper than at western sales. thank you to all the buyers and people that make the western sales happen!!!

I heard that there was some kind of snafu when the auction dates were scheduled. I know all the western sales staffs work hard at not falling on the same date.

“Several of us were up there
I can count Atleast 9 western buyers that were present at Fha”

That’s not counting eastern buyers or country buyers that have someone buying there.
And all of the buyers I’m referring too were bidding