Beaver Skinning

[FirstFlight]

So I just finished skinning my first beaver. I was wondering if there are any tricks for removing the fur around the tail and legs? Being as it was my first I had a few accidents going through the skin but all in all I think it came out ok. I just noticed that those seemed to be the trouble spots.

[JakeLand]

Havalon pranta knives work awesome they will make short work of it and when they dull you just put a fresh blade on and cut the feet off to begin with I like to leave the tail on until I'm done

[Magnum_Willys]

wish I had havalon in my trappin days - spent a lot of time with a leather strop sharpening my buck skinner.  All the hairs were gone on my left arm as thats where I tested by shaving to see if it was sharp enough. 

[ouchfoss]

One trick I learned from a video on YouTube was to flesh the area around each leg hole from the outside (fur side) after you chop the feet off. Makes fleshing around the leg area much faster an easier once you get to that area from the flesh side.

[Humptulips]

I find the fat around the legs to flesh off easily so I leave quite a bit on there and flesh off later. The area by the tail is tough. Sharp knife and good light. I skin with sort of a scraping motion. It will take practice to get it down.
Looks like there will be a beaver skinning demo at the Winter Rendezvous. Probably me.

[JakeLand]

I watched a video of Fred Lawrence skinning a beaver and he does a awesome tutorial maybe someone on here has it you can borrow

[FirstFlight]

Thanks you. I'll have to get a few more and keep trying.

[Machias]

One thing on the fleshing, your fleshing knife makes a HUGE difference.  I struggled with the first couple I did and then got a Lee Steinmeyer Knife and fleshing, particularly the lower back down to the tail, is so easy now.

[pashok23]

Try that next time... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C-9trO0eRcI

[FirstFlight]

One thing on the fleshing, your fleshing knife makes a HUGE difference.  I struggled with the first couple I did and then got a Lee Steinmeyer Knife and fleshing, particularly the lower back down to the tail, is so easy now.

I got a cheap knife fron the snare shop it did alright. I dung up a bit and got some meat on the pelt. I was able to get it off with the beaver knife. But I tried to get the rest with the knife and got a bit to agressive.