Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Isaac Here

Yesterday I caught an otter while out trapping. The average otter is 40 - 48 inches and this one was about 42 inches and 18 pounds. An otter will travel up to 60 miles. They live in banks in the river or old beaver dens. The spend 80% of their time in the water and eat fish, frogs, crayfish and the like. They have 2 or 3 babies a year and live up to 15 years old.
Normally when I get home, if I get time, I skin them, the sooner the better. And then I flesh them out and put them on a stretcher and let them dry. Fleshing is removing all the fat and meat off the pelt. This picture of it is on a stretcher all stretched out and ready to dry. It will probably take a week to dry. And when it's all dry it will be taken off the stretcher and will be good until I decide to sell it. If you look close you can see a few of my other furs that are already dry hanging in the background. So far I've gotten 9 skunks, 1 cyote, 6 racoons, 2 fox, 6 muskrats, and 1 otter and hopefully this will be out of date before the day is over.

2 comments:

  1. WOW! My name is Josiah and I am 9 years old. I wish I could trap an otter or even trap anything! I do catch lizards big ones where I live in the Philippine jungle. I had some questions for you. What do you do with the skunk skin and racoon and otter skin when you are done drying them. Also I had a pet goat but it died then hungry people came over and begged for the meat so I helped them butcher it. it was first time to help butcher and I was real sad because I raised the goat. well now I have frozen the leg and i want to keep it for my trophy but I do not know how to make it a trophy. Could you please give me an idea.? My family has a web site too. www.babyhomepages.net/tenlittleinions

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  2. Ok... when you skin a skunk... Do you stink to high heavens for many days!!!???!!???

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