Was on my way to put out some trail cameras today when I happened to spot a fawn that had been clipped by a car earlier in the morning... A couple little U-turns later and she was in the back of my SUV. I skinned her out on my coyote gambrel and fleshed her real quick; fawns work up real nicely! She'll be making the trip to Moyle's Tannery pretty soon along with a bunch of coyotes and fox I'm having garment tanned. I think she'll look pretty draped over the back of one of the couches in the man cave along with all the other mounts and furs down here.
Cool, I checked one out a couple weeks back but it was hit hard and not much was left. You have had a good year with skins...congrats again bro.
greg, where would you recommend i start if looking to get into skinning. i caped out my buck a few yrs back and had it all attached from the knees up, but it took what seemed like FOREVER. i would really like to start skinning on my own and other than youtube dont know where to start.... thanks buddy!
isiah, you can learn a LOT by cruising around trapperman.com If you REALLY want to dive into it, there's a couple really good DVD's on the subject of fur handling; I've got both. The one by Hal Sullivan is probably the best... but -- those are really for handling furs garnered by trapping and give a lot of detail for case skinning (skinning leaving the fur completely in the round and peeling it down off the animal) I'm not sure you'd need to go to that level to merely prepare a deer hide... You will need a sharp knife, a gambrel (although I supposed you could do a deer laying down) and a fleshing beam and fleshing knife (I've got a Necker 600). Buy a 50-lb. bag of mixing salt from your local farmer's co-op, stretch the hide out fur side down and rub salt all over it to cure it before doing anything with itl. You can send them to Moyle's tannery to have them done for you after that or work it up yourself if you've got a good relationship with your taxidermist and he'll let you use his pickling barrel and tanning supplies.
