the fat lady sings................

[trappnman]

sold the last fur of the year- fans turned off, traps in piles everywhere...........

all fur caught in last 2 weeks-

coon are dropping- this is going to be real interesting come auction time. the report is on several WI tops, groeny wants no more green coon. that's second hand info. A guy from area has 900 green coon, most early caught, and he can't find a buyer- no one wants the early coon, that ship has sailed. Lee said in his opinion, the harvest was up 40% or more. From what he thinks- the good coon will have good prices, but its going to be a hard grade, and middle and low end is going to go cheap or not at all. And the thought among several bigger country buyers, is that there is going to be a glut of held over coon next fall so who knows where coon are going to be next year.

I averaged $12 on my late caught coon, as blackhammer said, they didn't look too bad to me

rats improving- still a good property to have, but who knows where it will end. lots and lots of rats taken this year, and the consensus was that next year, esp with the droughts, it will be a low harvest year, and rats could continue to stay good. About $7.50 on my rats. probably 14" average rats. could be better I guess, but I'm happy to sel lthem for that cash in hand

mink- just holding steady it seems- I averaged 70% males for the entire season, and got every sale $18 males and $12 females- same this time, and these mink were springy

asked about coyotes- he said $35 top end and that better be a hell of a coyote- said good coyotes are going to do very well- lesser ones, not as much. Long haired fox doing well, and he thinks canines will be "hot" next fall

he had a bunch of martin he paid $38 average on.

otter going up, but we didn't talk price as I had none

beaver are all of a sudden going up- he said they are 40% higher this year than last. I got $25 green on my blankets, but then had some 2 year old and the price dropped quick to $12.50- average was $17. Castor was $50 a lb, so that added $4 and change to the beaver average.

[thorsmightyhammer]

It feels good to be done sometimes.

I cranking up for one last push and when february is over I hope i have enough brains to go fishin.

but....beaver do look good.

[ducktrapper]

I averaged just under $12 for mostly-late coon to Wiebke in mid-January. Size was very good, but I had too many of the short-haired variety. Anything big with long hair was $25, but most that were the same size went in the $10 pile with short hair. I am looking forward to spring beaver, but for now it is good to be fishing instead.

[bogio]

A friend who is also my boss is sitting on a couple of freezers clear full of coon from the first 4 days of the season. He is waiting to see how the auction goes. He might be sorry he waited.

[rustyg]

A lot of the buyers here are so loaded with coon in the freezers they quit buying green coon.

[thebeav2]

Word on the street Is that dealers (brokers ) are going to resit the buying of middle of the road and low end coon. Top end stuff should be OK. Going to be be some disgruntled coon trappers after this next auction.
I'm glad I only trapped a few coon this year(13) and concentrated on rats.

In my opinion and what I've heard, Is that the rat harvest was not all that high this season. Lots of rats will still be caught but I doubt that they will impact the next two sales. I think we can be pretty sure of $10.00 and even higher averages on rats on these next two auctions.

[trappnman]

I think beav, that this is one of the years where you better have sold your early coon, early.

it also sounds like to me, from talking to lee and selling my last coon, that color is becoming more of a factor, which makes sense with all the coon out there. anything with red, is dropping fast.

I don't have a clue about rat harvest in other areas, but Lee's buying numbers are very high this year compared to the past few years. I think the harvest is going to be very high overall, but having said that, I don't think its going to effect the prices much if at all. Lee also thinks prices on rats will carryover, because with this years harvest and the continuing droughts in many rat producing areas, production numbers will be down substantially next year.

his opinion, is that besides rats, longhairs will be the "hot" items next year.

[mtcbrlatrap]

Wow isn't that good news! not!! early coon have little value slightly rubbed or short guard hair coon, down in value, not clear colors way down in value. Hmm that means that we now have a mid Nov- early Dec harvest window for northern heavy coon and then one better be in an region where hopefully 50% of those are average or above in the preferred color.
Man with 2 million coons per year being trapped or shot that means we have a poor market for maybe 80% of those pelts. Yikes. When it takes 2 poor coons to equal a rat or 5 poor coons to equal a kit red fox then the incentive to trap coons drops quickly.
Of course if one is a mentally challenged Scandinavian like myself you could say that in a season or two when everyone is sick of selling early coon in the grease for 4-6 dollars. I can go out and catch 500 of them instead of 100 and make more money but with a ton more work.
I work with hundreds of small business owners and have for 37 years. At least a mentally challenged trapper only has a couple grand invested in equipment when the "crop" value goes to H. When you have several hundred K or even millions invested and the price drops that is serious indeed.

Bryce

[thebeav2]

Here's how my Oct coon graded. Oct 14th to Oct 17th

4xl*sel 4 nth- total 4

xxl II 2-3 NTH Total 3

xxl II 4-5 NTH total 3

4xl-3xl I 2-3 NC total 3

Like I said these coon were all as black as the ace of spades and caught in the first four days of the season. Now we will see what they bring at auction.

[trappnman]

early coon have little value slightly rubbed or short guard hair coon, down in value, not clear colors way down in value. Hmm that means that we now have a mid Nov- early Dec harvest window for northern heavy coon and then one better be in an region where hopefully 50% of those are average or above in the preferred color.


lets put that into perspective-

early coon, meaning late oct mid november when sold early- were bringing good averages- perhaps overall the best averages of the year. Lots of coon were harvested and bought.

but we then had a 40-50% longer season as it were, and despite coon being down in my local area seems that wsa exception, and a lot of mid season coon were put on the market. seems likes it official- many local buyers including groeny, don't want more green coon- the pipelines are flooded with them. and there are just so many good coon out there, that poor colors and poor fur sit without end buyers.

guys that stored green coon all winter are going to have to put them up for the later sales, or keep them.

beav, I have zero knowledge of auction grades- I know "good" color, and bad, I know size and I know fur density/length-

could you break down what you posted in my terms? I can see all your coon offered were XXL and up- good sized coon so size should be detrement when they sell-

[mtcbrlatrap]

Yes but that works for one season. Buyers won't be anxious to be buying early goods next fall if they took a beating on them this winter. If the buyers were moving them to markets quickly then they are better off. If one was paying 8-10 for average runs of WI coon in the grease then for a buyer to make 20% over his cost of the fur, commissions and handling those pelts need to sell for about close to $20 gross to get the 20% margin. A lot depends on also where the 20% margin comes from the total cost in the coon times 20% or 20% of the gross selling price. That could range about $2 a pelt as well.

Bryce

[blackhammer]

Feb 10, 2012 10:17:29 GMT -6 @thebeav2 said:

Here's how my Oct coon graded. Oct 14th to Oct 17th

4xl*sel 4 nth- total 4

xxl II 2-3 NTH Total 3

xxl II 4-5 NTH total 3

4xl-3xl I 2-3 NC total 3

Like I said these coon were all as black as the ace of spades and caught in the first four days of the season. Now we will see what they bring at auction.

Three no sales,the others somewhere between 15 and 20 after commission probably closer to 15.I have no idea,everyone thinks there a furbuyer.lol

[trappnman]

bryce- I think thats a real concern- the holdover fur might be very large next fall- after all, its only 8 or so months away. I think next fall, we might well see a drop in coon averages, at least the first run of coon.

on the beaver, seems like the Chinese are getting into beaver more, thus the increase in prices lately

[bblwi]

So what we are seeing is not an influx of monies or funds into fur, just more of a shift of where the resources go. Money that went into coons is now in rats and canines and maybe beaver.

Coons, coyotes and beaver are not fun to carryover long. Lots of them so that is real dollars, they are big and there is also quite a bit of time and cost in getting them ready.
If our utilitarian market is being lost to a more specialized high priced luxury market than that bodes well for ranch fur and the best of the best in wild fur.
Spending 500 each for 500 spotted cats that you know you have a home for soon is not much risk. Buying 20,000 $12.50 coons that you need to go to door to like a traveling salesmen to get a $2.50 markup is not profitable, fast or fun.

Bryce

[claythomas]

I don't know squat about fur markets compared to some of you guys, but I was thinking about this scenario just based on my own trapping.

With the increased popularity of internal trigger traps it seems to me that many more coon will be caught.

I'm in South Central PA, we have few rats, a decent amount of mink, but ...well, their mink. SO what is my real motivation for digging pockets set? Especially when most places it's not easy digging'.

To make things easier the last few years, I utilized drags on all my pockets set. This year I said screw pockets. I'm just gonna use DP's and stack the coon. Yep my mink and rat catch was basically nile. BUT with very little effort, and that is the key point, I caught 3 dozen coon within 3-4 miles of my house. And most of these sets, I had rigged to check and never leave the truck.

What is my motivaltion for getting in the water?

Surely, I'm not the only one that has thought this way. One would think that this would result in a significant increase in the coon catch and therefore tougher grading.

[jim]

I thought this trapping gig was to get us some exercise!
Jim

[mtcbrlatrap]

It is it is just that it is an excercise of many things. LOL
For me it is like getting some payment for doing a Jenny Craig thing. If we are doing it from the vehicle with 10 steps per set maybe not as much excercise and exercising options and opportunities. Maybe not too far down the road they will have traps specifically for cats, fox, mink etc. like they do coons. If we continue to just harvest coons we will leave more biomass of other species and that will impact their habitat to s certain extent.

Bryce

[bblwi]

The one thing about buying cheap coon is that if you bought say 1,000 for 2500 in the grease you could afford to wait quite a while. How that is only a cup a coffee and a Persian per day for 250 days a year. Plus, oh I forgot plus all the work! But hey then one could burn up about 50-100 calories per pelt and lose 10 lbs.

Bryce

[trappnman]

I don't see too much future for cheap, meaning bottom end, coon in todays market- just too many good ones in the hands of buyers, and many more available for harvest.

I had 3 no value coon- and 1 was a dink, but the other 2 were big coon, just poor fur- first 3 coon I've ever had no value on.

I think anyone that wants cheap coon, can get them. Unfortunately no one wants them, and I can't see that changing in the forseeable future.

my thought is if shorthairs are cheap- they will eventually go up, as the fur quality in shorthairs is fairly consistent. Even fox to a degree- sure, color varies, but overall, a fox is a fox in that they are pretty consistent if in season whereas coon and coyotes, a poor pelt is a poor pelt, and there is such a variation between poor and quality, that with holdovers of "cheap" stuff, hard to ever get caught up without a fire sale.

anyone interested in cheap coon, there is a guy trying to sell 900 frozen green coon to the buyers around here and Webkies groeny, etc won't touch them, cause most are early coon.

[mtcbrlatrap]

I would not to be buying the larger early coons. I don't need 34 inch region 111s that someone wants 6-10 for. I would take the 27 inch coon for 1.00. He is happy and so am I. Offering $5 for big bad coons makes two people mad.

Bryce