Skinning

First off, unless you put in a lot of time and effort into harvesting Coyotes you aren’t going to get rich by harvesting pelts. To be honest the fur market is in the toilet, the bunny lovers and tree huggers have pretty much ruined what was once a pretty lucrative business. You can still harvest the pelts and make a couple bucks, a nice rug or maybe a wall display, if you know how.

Some people will leave the critter to rot, or hang them from fence poles for the rancher or farmer to see. I think this is a waste of a perfectly good pelt and other parts of the animal that could be put to further use. Remember though, when in Rome do as Caesar says. If the farmer or rancher wants the animal left whole, requests that you do not pelt them out, or the animal is really sick with something like the mange or other really bad disease. Leave it alone, a single pelt isn’t worth losing a hunting spot or getting something that you have to go to the doctor to clear up.

There are two major ways to skin out a varmint. Case skinning and open skinning. Case skinning is most often seen with Coyote and Foxes. Open skinning is usually done on 'fatter' species such as Skunk, Raccoon and Beaver. Below are the steps taken on each type of method.

Skinning Tips:

1. Skinning the animal is usually easier if you skin the animal while the animal is still warm.
2. Keep a small sharpening stone with you if you know you are going to be skinning a lot of animals. A sharp knife is a must.
3. Other parts of some animals can be taken and sold such as claws, skulls, teeth and such. The market for these parts is usually fairly small, but it's just that much more you can earn if you put the work into it.

Do you have a skinning tip that you would like to share? Send it to tips@utahvarminters.org and we will add it to this page!