I will not go into the long process of skinning out a beaver. Suffice it to say that there is much pulling of hide from flesh, and much delicate knife work both in separating skin from carcass where it will not pull apart, and in locating the castor and oil glands and removing them, and eventually in separating the ears and eyelids and lips and nostrils from the skull. Too, I will not describe the further remaining of scraping the fat and sinew and whatever flesh remains from the hide in order to prepare the entire pelt for tanning and stretching to finally make a round bedside rug.
Nor will I go into the entirety of the time and work put into the cleaning of 12 ducks – canvasbacks and mallards and ringbills and a gadwall – in our two methods. Neither the breasting method, which involves skinning the front half of the duck from the neck to the belly and over to each wing, then fillet-ing out each breast, being careful to keep what I call the tenderloin deep inside either side of the sternum or breast bone; nor the plucking method done to prepare ducks for roasting whole – not the plucking of the duck – all the feathers and down and pin feathers and quills, then the cutting off of the head down the neck and wings and feet at the first joints and tail at the base and pulling out of the gassy, ducky, marshy innards.
I could, however, describe to you the skinning or breasting of the partridge, because it is a comparatively easy thing, skinning of a part or whole of the bird and removing either the breasts in a method similar to the aforementioned duck for frying, or the cutting off of extremities for the browning and then slow cooking of the whole bird.
It has always been our habit to save the tail feathers of the ruffed grouse to use as splayed-out displays. This, too, I can detail. Cut the tailbone from the end of the bird at the base of the tail. Cure the tailbone in either a base or acidic agent or solution. I have used brine, vinegar, alcohol, peroxide, or a baking soda paste. After soaking for some days, fan out the feathers from the white and cured, fleshy and meaty tailbone by applying pins between them in a board on a board or cardboard or your front door. Allow to dry completely.
Every year I use the newly harvested partridge and duck wings to re-dress our dog bumpers or dummies. I attach the wings (and sometimes the feet) to the canvas dummies with a thin (18- or 20-gauge) wire. Some trainers use rubber bands. But I find that the wire assists in deterring the pup from biting down on the dummy during the retrieve. The lesson learned is to have a soft mouth when retrieving ducks or upland game birds.
I wish I could tell you how to skin a muskrat, because then you could infer from that about skinning the mink, and coon, and fisher and marten, and red fox and gray fox. There is a complicated technique with regards to the skunk, but it can be learned in time, and ends the same.
All of which is similar to, but more deft than, skinning a deer.
Someone once asked me if I knew how to skin a deer.
“With all the muskrats I have skun in my life,” I joked, “It ain’t nothing for me to skin a deer.”
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