My older brother hunted and ran trap lines for pelts religously when we were in High School. I have not sold a pelt since 1985. What are the various pelts going for these days? Are they even worth the work to skin them? A number of years back I was told that they wernt worth skining.

Semper Fi and Safe Hunting.
Will

458LottFan: I am hosting some Big Game Hunters here in SW Montana as of this, and, next weeks.
I have arranged for one of my guests (who was very taken with some of my pelts) to buy a tanned and tube skinned Coyote from my Trapper friend.
My Trapper friend is giving my Hunting friend a "good deal"!
The pelt in question is like I said already tanned, large and is tube skinned style - my Trapper friend pays $35.00 for these to be tanned in the tube version, hair on of course.
The selling price of this pelt is $60.00!
I see them sell to tourists here all the time (large ones!) for $90.00 to $100.00!
So my Trapper friend is "realizing" $25.00 on the pelt for his Trapping time and effort, skinning time and effort and taking the pelts 65 miles (each way) to the tanner.
So for $25.00 to $65.00 profit (?) per large Coyote pelt and the efforts involved they aren't really worth to much!
I think it is much more important for us to thin the Coyotes out as opposed to padding our bank accounts.
I wish I could be more specific or exact in answering your question but thats the latest I have.
I remember in the past when Fur Buyers in Seattle would pay $200.00 for a big Montana White Coyote!
And those were 1969 dollars!
I did here (on the local AM radio news) that a large Bobcat pelt sold at a fur sale in Pocatello, Idaho this past spring for $590.00!
Now that would get my attention.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I averaged $25 each last year.

Wow the prices have come way down. My brother Ron and I used to average around $65.00 for a nice white belly coyote that filled a large streacher and up to $75.00 for and exceptional one. This was for raw fleshed hides. I paid for a good chunk of my first pickup truck with hides. We shot and trapped Racoons, Fox, Coyote, Badger, Beaver, Muscrats, I tried for Bobcats but was never sucsesfull.

Regardless of price the bugers need to be hunted to controll the numbers. I know where I grew up the coyotes have really hit the Prong Horn Population hard.

The Desert coyotes don't have great hides die to the temps so we shoot them and leave them lay. They have pretty bad case of fleas usully.

Because of this I don't worry about the bullets I use. I just kill them right there right now. and it is usualy messy. Here is one I shot with my .25-06 and a 100 grain Match King. DRT every time.


This one I took with my .308 with a 168 grain AMAX at 300+ yards. This one is not to bad.

It would seem to me that $25 for one hide with a 60 mi trip is not worth much. But if you had 20 hides, and a market for them, thats $500!

So I've never bothered picking one up befor, targets of opertunity, how much trouble skinning around the head and where do you get the streachers?

Interesting note. I went to Alaska last May and stopped ot a little outpost in the Yukon. They were selling tanned wolf hides there, $800 ea!

I recently saw a nice coyote "throw" with 6 hide stiched together with backing for $3000. The skins they used didn't even match! Coyote blanket's in Cabell's sell for $5000. Maybe you could sell hides on Ebay.

I have sold coyoes fo $60 too but I'm talking a true average, not just my best fur. I take the number sold divided by how much I got. I had coyotes go for $45 last year but again a true average of $25. Bobcats are another story, they were sky high last season, averaged $478, averaged $24 on redfox. Skinning the head is not too difficult, if you can skin the rest of it you can do the head. A little nick in the head doesn't matter as much as if you nick the belly or somewhere else.

Kwk: The $60.00 price was for a professionally tanned, tube skinned, large Coyote and it was a "buddy price" at that!
By the way my friend the Trapper has had a standing order for EVERY Fox's pelt that he can trap or shoot for the last at least 20 years that I know of.
They go to California, the buyer drives up (to SW Montana) once a year, at the end of the winter, and takes the hides back with him where he has them tanned and then he sells them for $90.00 to $100.00 apiece on the coast. My friend told me he gets $25.00 each for the raw pelts and then the buyer probably pays $20.00 to tan them or he does it himself and makes a handsome profit (doubles his money!) on each pelt.
Big difference between tanned and just skinned pelts, price wise.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Back when I hunted yotes in Missouri there was a $25.00 bounty on a matched set of ears. Dad never wanted me to skin them as the hides weren't valuable back when. Now adays I would skin them out and have them tanned for presents to certain individuals. (PETA lovers)