I told you all that Stein accompanied me on a day of trapping the other day.  I forgot to introduce you to him.

Stein and his father Brad, called me last Spring (2011) about the possibility of catching a raccoon.  Stein wanted to catch a nice fat fully prime one and then have it tanned.

My assumption was that he would make a rug out of the tanned hide and hang it on the wall.  That was an assumption that did not come true.

We set ourselves a “trapping season” and began our attempt at catching one.  Days went by and our experience was not very fruitful until the last day of our season.  That is the day Stein did in fact catch a very nice male raccoon in full glory.  I must admit it was a very nice raccoon.

I gave him a lesson on skinning the animal and he helped by skinning down one side while I did the other.  A fun day for sure for us both.  Maybe even mom, dad and sis had a good day as well…I don’t know for sure.

Anyway, Stein’s tanned raccoon hide came back in the late summer or early fall of last year (2011) and his mother quietly made a hat out of it.  A finer job of making a raccoon hat could not have been done.  It is beautiful, as you are about to see…..Folks, I introduce you to Stein Waddups……

He may be only 14, but he has very big dreams and I’m here to tell you, I believe he can do anything he puts his mind to doing!

Thanks for going with me that day Stein!  Oh, and thanks for offering me some of your jerky!

Bears Butt

March 2012