I haven't updated this thread for a while. I ended up selling half of my 16 coon skins I had up at the NAFA auction in late Jan. If I throw out the one dink I had that sold after being in multiple auctions, my ave. was about $14 a hide. This is lower than my 2 previous years of selling through one of the auction house but many guys didn't even get an offer for their raccoon in Jan. as the main buyer of NA coon skins, the Russians or the Chinese for the Russian market, weren't there or wouldn't start at what the auction house thought was an opening bid. So these hides were "bought back" (as half of mine were).
NAFA (the largest North American fur auction house) spun it that they were really waiting until their "big" sale at the end of March to press things. The smaller of the two big auction house, Fur Harvesters, is having their 2nd sale (also larger than their first) next week in Helsinki. The only real bright spot at the NAFA Jan. sale was the western (northern) coyotes that did very well. Other wild fur was either down or just didn't get much for bids.
So, over the next 3 weeks the true current condition of the wild fur market will take shape. NAFA sold over a million coon skins in 2014 so people are wondering if the Jan. or even lower prices will become the new "normal". Sort of like the speculation on steel. Has a new "normal" been reached? If my coon average went to $10 or lower, I'd probably take a break from going after them. Just not worth my (slower than most) time to finish them.
Next season (as this one is winding down) I might have to go in search for some decent muskrat numbers in SD (may have to camp out in Patriot 76's pole barn for an extended weekend !!) and get after the wild k-9s around here. I've missed out doing much of those for a while. Coyote and fox are a lot fewer than coon around here but quicker (at least fox) to put up and higher return on the effort. I'd like to trap mrats from home but I just don't see our wetlands filling up this year and without much water, there's not high numbers of 'rats. They are quicker and easier to "put up" than coon.
I haven't eaten coon for a long time but my 8th grader and me might have to cook some up tomorrow. I've kept some back legs off of some medium sized ones this season. Maybe I'll post a pix of our meal...
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