In the previous pic you’ll see my paint scraper which I use next to clean up the edge of the pelt to ready for nails .

Then I start to nail out evenly from the nose to each side:


After the pelt is nailed out I run over the whole pelt with the scraper (and paper towels) to clean fat/blood and liquid grease off the leather:

Yikes-how far from home are you trapping this week?

Looking good Mad
BP I hope it’s something simple with your motor.

A few more to work on tomorrow. Rained quite a bit today and supposed to rain for two more days. Going to pull tomorrow morning and find some new ground hopefully

The next step is I trim around the leg holes and take out the ears:




And done. Ready for the other side.

I got two in the boat before the outboard lost power. I had noticed some more sets that had beaver when I went past on my way down to the most down river set. My upstream traps I never got to.

Newfox I hope you and Gerry can kick that quick.

BP nice tutorial, I've never "milked" the hide but see where a lot of people do. I'm going to do it on the ones I put up tomorrow. I bet it sure does facilitate dry time. The paint scraper looks like the way to go for that. I've got an old one I can round the corners on a little bit more and use it.
Hope you get that motor situation fixed. New one are so expensive.
Do you have a back up motor?

Yeah Turtle it does speed up drying time, but what I really like is the leather side of those pelts are virtually so grease free you could just about eat off of them.

Hey NF you guys get over that nasty stuff. Elderberry tea if you can get some.

Newfox1, speedy recovery to you and Gerry.

beaverpeeler is cutting out the ears necessary or personal preference.

Bow, it helps get the pelts off the board a little faster. Other than that no, not necessary.

Thanks for the tutorial Beaverpeeler! Hope your motor situation is alleviated fairly painlessly.

Newfox, hope your feeling better soon!

BP my client told me he has some elderberry syrup, maybe I’ll try some.

NOT bashing BPs tutorial at all (it is excellent). I didn't see a real good explanation on cutting the ears...when I do it I shave off the bud from the skin side, then pull the ear up through (to the skin side) and cut it off flush. Hopefully I explained that well, and didn't offend anyone!

That's pretty much how I do it too Yukon. Thanks for the clarity.

In my case I actually just jab a pointed knife in next to the cartilage give it a little half twist and pull the ear up through the hole and cut it off. Nail hole shut.

OK cool, I may try that! Thanks.

Paint scraper probably works well. I've always used one of the flat spoon type ice cream scoops to scrape the hide and pull the milk out. That is what I started using as a kid because it is what my dad used. I've tried an old beaver scraper that was my grandpa's but prefer the ice cream scoop. Plus the one I have had for the last 15-20 years has a nice soft rubber handle. Getting the milk out may not be necessary in this market, but it certainly isn't going to hurt your prices, and you get whiter hides and no grease.

Good tutorial BP, other than cutting the nose and lips off, pretty much how I do it. I have always just split the nose so it lays out flat trimmed the cartilage off and the inner part of the lips.

I used to sew or tie the legholes closed rather than nail them, but that was probably a holdover from hooping them. For a while I would nail the rear legs and tie the fronts, but for the last quite a while I just nail them all, simply faster and easier when putting on a board.

Thanks beaverpeeler, I really appreciate the detailed tutorial. Lots of really good info there.
I hadn't been cutting the cartilage out on the ears and even with the dehumidifier it took forever to dry, and it looks kind of meh. I'll definitly start cutting it off and closing it up from now on. Thanks again