Short and sweet…the trapping season is almost over for this year as the buyers are now beginning to get really interested in purchasing our rats.

One of the buyers came by on Saturday and looked them over…actually, he sat in the shed and looked them over…I took one of the hangers down and he thumbed through them and made his assessment of the lot of them from that sampling.  Which is actually all that was needed as the rest of them are just like that 50.  Over all, we have a catch that exceeds anything we have caught in the past as far as the size of the rats goes.  They are mostly XL size or bigger…sure there are a few mediums and large, but for the most part they average XL.

He did make a comment about what another buyer said…the other buyer was talking to him about our rats and said “they are put up ‘skinny'”!  Meaning our stretchers are not as wide as they should be…he came back with “no they aren’t, I gave them some of those stretchers and they are properly sized”…or something to that effect.

This buyer did in fact give us some stretchers a few years back and Bob went through all of the stretchers we have and adjusted them to exactly fit the model shown in the fur handlers booklet that we have hanging in the shed.

So, what happens now?

This buyer I’m talking about did call Bob yesterday morning and gave him a bid on the rats…a way too low bid I might add…and Bob called me to let me know what it was.  I commented on the fact that we could always freeze the rats and let them go later…maybe in June if the price came up.  Our tasks for today are to contact a few other buyers and let them know we are very interested in a “fair” bid and that we are ready to sell.  All the rats hanging are now cured and ready to come down.

Bob has his lot of buyers to call, as do I and that will be something that will happen first thing…once we think they are up and have had their coffee.  Oh, and I almost forgot…the buyer who has given us his first bid also wants me to tell one of the buyers I’m to call, to give him a call…sort of confusing huh?  Well, if bidder number one (as I’ll call him) wants another buyer to call him about our rats, he must want him to know the quality of our rats, and he also wants him to give us a fair price…that is quite a good thing for him to do for us.  It makes sense to me that if we have the quality of rats that we know we have, we should get top dollar for them.

The way I see it, if a buyer ends up with our rats, they could take them, grade them and put them with the token other rats they may have bought from other trappers that equal ours, to create a “top grade, top quality” shipment and send them off to auction.  And then take the rest of what they have and send them in a different shipment…the top lot will net them substantially more than the “run of the mill” shipment to follow and any loss of money from the second shipment will be greatly offset by the top lot they first shipped.  Well, that’s my take on it anyway.

Another way to think of it is our own undoing perhaps.  Maybe with this years high grade of big rats, we might be better off if the buyers graded them…it’s sort of a catch 22 situation.  We do have some very large rats in the mix.  Some that exceed 18 inches in length with the majority of the rats exceeding 15 inches…I have said I would like a picture of them graded by size laying on the tarp and everyone who has been involved this year in the picture (buyers excluded).  The picture would show a very very small stack of under 15 inches, and a very small stack of over 17 inches and the rest would be in the middle in a huge stack with Conner, Weasel, Bob, Brek, Cole, Wapiti and I in the background….A cool picture for sure….especially if I was in focus.

Bears Butt

April 1, 2013 (April Fools Day)

A very nice Spring day today…we got a lot of farm work done this morning and had a wonderful day to get some of our own personal home work done as well.

On the trapping scene, we had a buyer come by and look at the wonderful display of top quality rats…I even let him see one of the larger rats…a small 17 incher, only because it was up and over my head and I saw it.  Where the 18 inchers are is anyone’s guess…back on a hanger among the multitude.

As of right now we have not heard his bid, but it will most likely be a fair one for us and certainly fair for himself.  We are not in the business of costing someone else money, we just want to make a good fair amount and still allow the buyer to make a few bucks at the same time.

Bob and I talked and we are not against freezing this years catch and putting them in with next years catch, which would actually give us a better bargaining edge next year….But you never know what the market will do in a years time.  With the price for mink being so very high right now, the muskrat market is high because of it.  As long as the Russian people are willing to buy fur coats, hats, gloves, scarfs etc., the market for fur will continue to be high, but when you look at the price they are paying for a raw mink hide, not even tanned, and then make a coat out of it…who in their right mind would or even could pay for a full mink coat?  So, in comes the muskrat…lower price and still just as nice a final product.

Monday will be a busy day on the phone with some of the other buyers to get their bids etc.  We will see.

I hope all of you enjoy your Easter Sunday!

Bears Butt

March 30, 2013

And the bids are beginning to line up.  We are expecting one of the potential buyers to give us his bid tomorrow and another has promised to make his offer on Monday.  And then there is the guy out of state…how interested is he in a lot of 784 very nice (excellent) rats….He will get another call soon.

I checked on the last batch of rats I put up the other day and they still have a couple more days to cure before they are ready to come down and so there is no sense taking down any of the others hanging in there.  It’s just the right temperature and humidity to cure them and so there they hang…a pretty sight in my mind.

More to come as things develop!

Bears Butt

March 29, 2013

Bob just returned from town where he went into a trapping supply store and was told he is “black balled”!  They won’t even think about buying any raw furs from him!

How is that for a company that has been in business for over 30 years?  Suddenly they can select who they wish to purchase furs from…not that we would sell to them, unless of course they were the high bidder…but to not even entertain a “low ball bid”….give me a break!

He asked what they were buying rats for and the guy running the store said he couldn’t tell him…not that he didn’t know…just that he would not tell him.  Then he called the “old boss” and told him that Bob was bugging him to tell him and the “old boss” said…Tell him I will tell him on Saturday….

What’s with these guys?  I’m sure glad we have the rest of the world to deal with because these guys business is going under faster than then might think they will, especially with an attitude like that!  It doesn’t take very long for poor and/or miss-management to close doors and this one has been going down hill for at least the last 4 years.

Bears Butt

March 21, 2013

The final number of rats were fleshed and put on stretchers yesterday and will be ready for market come tomorrow.  The trapping shed has been cleaned “some”, but still needs a good going over once the rats are out of there (sold).  And today is the day the first “buyer, looker” is coming to see what we have.

Bob talked to him yesterday and told him “Our rats are ready if you want to come and take a look at them before we put them in sacks.  We have 784 total and want a straight through price.  We will take the highest bid over $10”!  The guy said, “You won’t get $10 from me”!

I thought that was funny.

I called a guy from Idaho and talked with him.  He was at a fur auction at the time I contacted him and so his attention was at whatever he was looking at and hearing.  I could hear something going on in the background.  But he said he was very interested in our rats, especially that quantity.  I told him the same as Bob told the other guy…we want a straight through price, no grading…give us his best bid.  He told me he would have to get back with me on it, because his attention was on the auction.  Fair enough.

And so, here we go with the final part of the trapping…We catch the furs, the buyers catch us.

Bears Butt

March 21, 2013

Today should be the last day to put rats on stretchers.  We had three that were not dry enough yesterday to put up and so that is my job today.  And then it’s contact the buyers time…my job is to call a guy in Idaho to let him know we are now ready to sell.  Bob will contact the others.

There is still quite a bit of work to do with the rats in the shed and a big one is to take down the rats that are dried on the stretchers and put them on hangers.  That will get done today as well.  The ones that were put up yesterday and the three today will take about 3 days to dry and will probably stay on the stretchers for 4 or 5 days.  The heat to the shed has been turned off as the day time temps are supposed to be in the mid to upper 50’s.

In the mean time, don’t fret to think that I don’t have anything else to do with my time….look at these….

I still have 19 more to make.  The story behind these will begin probably tomorrow.

Bears Butt

March 27, 2013

Yesterdays put up of 50 rats went very well.  I think Weasel and I took about 2 hours to put them up, which is about right for old guys.

We were talking about the operation and I really feel bad that I didn’t take a video of Brek skinning the rats.  I was on line and watched a young man show how he skins, fleshes and stretches his rats.  Trust me when I say, if he caught more than 10 rats in any one day, it would take him all the next day to put them up, if he used his shown method on each of them.  But, they were put up properly….

We ended up taking down the other 60 rats and put them on hangers, so we now have plenty of room and stretchers for the remaining frozen rats.  Those rats we took out of the freezer to thaw and I hope they are ready to put up this afternoon.  I’m sure a few of them will have to wait until tomorrow because they are still too wet to put up.

Meanwhile, Bob is talking to one of the buyers to get a feel for rat prices….

Bears Butt

March 26, 2013

The trapping year has been a great one despite the ice and snow that kept us from getting the start we wanted.

The next few days won’t be too exciting as far as the daily trapping stories go, but they are still a part of what goes on.  The 50 rats we took out of the freezer yesterday will be thawed out and ready to flesh and put on stretchers…that will be a “this afternoon” thing.

I’m hoping that we can take down another 60 rats and if we are then I will get the rest of the rats out of the freezer to do tomorrow.  If not, then that job will have to wait until Wednesday.

Back in the house, we have tile being laid in the entry way and down the hall.  The guy is here now preparing the floor for the under layment…some sort of cement bonding agent or whatever, coating a wire mesh.  He said it will become one solid structure when it’s all said and done.  MaPa’s is sure not understanding it all and he will be even more confused when I close the door to the kitchen and the other door to the bedroom…his domain will be shut out.

Last Friday there was another fur auction and the average price for muskrats was $11.75…that pretty much sets the price we can expect for our furs.  Now the local trapper and buyers will not get nor pay that type of money, that is just what the buyers can most likely expect to get for the furs they send to the auction houses later this year.  And, they will have to pay a commission to the auction house out of that and also have to cover the cost to ship the furs to them.  So, we might only get $10 for our furs.  Whatever the case, Bob is in charge of that, that is why I pay him the big bucks!  😉

Bears Butt

March 25, 2013

It took him almost all day, but Bob finally came in with his truck loaded down with all his traps and floats!  Lucky for him he had his Grandson helping out.  I should have anticipated his arrival and been ready with the camera, but I wasn’t.  The truck could not have held another piece of trapping devise…IT WAS LOADED!

We unloaded it and then the true test of the trapper came shining through…how many rats did Bob catch on such a cold night?  9!  Now that is a great catch considering he had a layer of ice on all the water covering his line when he left the field the day before and then a very cold night on top of that…he said there was a full inch of ice on everything out there when he pulled the traps and still he managed to catch 9 rats!  Every one was caught under the ice in traps set for that purpose…what a GREAT way to end the trapping season for him!  Congrats to Bob!

Something I have not told you until now, is that Cole did some Fall trapping last year and caught quite a few rats.  Those rats were skinned and then frozen to be included with our catch this year.  So, toss those numbers into the mix and we end up with a total rat catch for 2013 of  784!  That is a lot of rats in anyone’s book!

Today is Sunday and normally a day to get away from the daily trapping things, but this one will have to include some trapping duties.  We have to put the rats the Bob caught yesterday on stretchers, which means fleshing them first.  It won’t take long to do that.  Then there is some preparation work to get ready to put up the rats that are in the freezer…119 of them…so down will come at least 60 rats on stretchers, and 120 if they are ready to come down.

My plan is to take a short video of the inside of the trapping shed once the nine rats are put up today and then I’ll post it up here.  Don’t expect a whole lot of top quality video, as my camera is not the best, nor are my abilities to make it work the way I would like to make it work, but you should be able to see the high quality of the stretched hides and get a feeling as to the size of the rats we have hanging up…the average is XXL across the board!  A TOP LOT of rats for sure.

Bears Butt

March 24, 2013