Hey guys, here is a true story of mine about skinning and tanning skunk hides. Hope you enjoy it.
My hunting partner and myself had decided one winter (1995/96) that it would be great if we had a couple skunk hides hanging on the wall at home. Thus started an adventure that was to test the limits of Emergency Room care at the local hospital and the resolve of our marriages.
This might be rather long but the whole odyssey from start to finish spanned several months and to not tell the whole tale would be disgracing the torment and physical anguish that we went through.
The first thing we had to do was get us a couple skunks. The trick to killing a skunk is to do it without him spraying. We ended up with three skunks.
SKUNK 1
I was trapping at the time and knew that sooner or later I would have a skunk in a trap. It was not long after the fateful decision to tan us some skunk hides that I found a skunk in a trap one morning on my trap line. Every time I approached him he acted mighty aggravated. I think he might have suspected what we had in store from him. I was afraid that he would spray if I got any closer and I was not close enough to give him a killing head shot with my pistol. (pre-Browning Buckmark). I had to therefore shoot him in the head with a rifle. Problem was the weeds were too tall for me to see the skunk when I backed away. I ended up standing in the bed of my pickup and leaning over the cab with a Marlin 39A with open sights. One shot from about 40 yards and I had me one big dead skunk. I walked over and was elated that I hit him in the head and he died without spraying. As I gleefully carried him back to my pickup with visions of tanned skunk hides on the wall I nonchalantly tossed him over the tailgate and into the pickup.
Bad mistake. When he hit the floor he let go every drop of the putrid, gagging liquid he had reserved for me. Now when I did this I was standing directly behind the tailgate. The tailgate that was made out of the diamond mesh steel sYep, I got sprayed from about 2 feet away. I puked and regained my composure. I thought maybe we could wash the stink out of him if we had to and decided to keep him. For lack of a better place to put him I wrapped him in plastic bags and buried him in the bottom of the chest freezer inside the back porch. Remember this for later.
SKUNK 2 and 3
It was colder than a well diggers butt and we knew all the critters would be holed up tight. We were raccoon hunting and were running the dogs inside abandoned farms houses and buildings. These old falling down places are favorites for raccoons to sleep out a cold snap.
Me and hunting partner #2 were in the basement of an old house. Hunting partner #2 did not approve of the skunk adventures. It would even be safe to say he thought we were crazy and was deathly afraid of skunks. The dogs were rooting around the old buildings and we were in the old house. We were looking in nooks and crannies for old Mr. raccoon. There was a faint musky smell of skunk but it was not strong enough to get my hopes up. Nor was it strong enough to send my faint hearted hunting partner fleeing for his life. I looked under a chunk of concrete from the broken up floor and saw a patch of black with some white on it. Now to get into the basement you had to come down some rickety stairs that ended about 3 feet from the floor.
As soon as I yelled SKUNK! Hunting partner #2 cleared that 3-foot jump and was up the stairs and closed the door. He would open the door to talk to me but would not come back down the stairs to help. I had to form an escape plan in case the skunk sprayed when I shot it. I piled some rubble up below where the stairs ended to help me in my jump for freedom in case I had to run for it. I lay on the floor and stuck my pistol in the hole. I had to scoot way over against the wall and kind of curl up to see the head. I could make out a nose on the curled up skunk and knew the head was right above the nose. I shot and did a running leap for the rubble,stairs,and door. I came stumbling out and see hunting partner laughing his head off at the way I came flying out of there. We slowly opened the door back up and sniffed. Everything seemed to be fine and hunting partner #2 even followed me back into the evil depths of skunk ****. Well the skunk was dead and did not spray. His last final kicks brought him out into the open. When the dead skunk kicked out in the open he made it possible for the other skunk to get out of the hole. Now we had no idea there were two of them. Hunting partner #2 pretty much ran me over as we flew screaming up the stairs. I was close behind him. Skunk #2 was shot from upstairs in the head with a rifle very uneventfully.
Now being a thinking man I knew better than to throw the skunks and making them spray. I also had brought along a couple empty bread sacks just in case we were lucky enough to get into some skunks. It took quite a bit of pleading to get hunting partner #2 to help me stuff the skunks in the sacks. The little bit of odor that was on them had me gagging and he puked. We gently laid them in the back of HIS pickup and took off. He made me tie long strings to the bags in case the perfume came out. The idea was we could grab the strings and pull them out without having to touch the bags.
We got home with no problems.
Skinning Skunks
The next day at work I gleefully told hunting partner #1 about our fine luck. We excitedly made plans to do the deed that night when we came in from raccoon hunting. The day passed with the slowness that only a sense of adventure (or impending doom) can bring. We got off work and grabbed the coonhounds and took off. The ensuing events have caused me to forget how many raccoons we got that night, but I do know at the end of the night we had a passel of skinning to do.
Now normally we do all the skinning in my garage. I have a furnace in there and a winch that pulls the hides off the carcass. Conveniently I was out of propane and we had to use my dad’s garage. We backed my mom’s car out and hung up my dad’s skinning gambrel. The raccoons were all skinned and we were eyeballing the skunks. Hunting partner #1 had no prior experience with the white striped little devils and was relying on my instructions. I told him to do it just like a raccoon but to be ever so careful around the hind end where these little glands were.
Now the problem with using my dad’s skinning gambrel is that unlike my winch setup we had to cut and pull the hide off by hand. I was in the process of scraping the fat off a raccoon hide when I looked over at hunting partner #1. He was holding the long, sharp, very pointy fillet knife in such a way that if he slipped it would cut him. Just when I was about ready to tell him he was going to cut his hand off the knife slipped.
The knife went through the nasty little gland by the skunk’s hind end and into his hand by the wrist. It poked through he back side by his knuckles. There was blood SQUIRTING into the air and the garage floor was quickly covered. The stench was strong and immediate. We were both crying and gagging as we ran to the pickup and headed for the hospital. It was below feezing and we were driving down the road with the windows open and our heads hanging out. He had wrapped a skinning (dirty) rag around his hand and was holding it tight. I have to give him credit there was hardly any blood in the pickup.
Now if any of you have ever experienced slow service in the Emergency Room then you will appreciate the gleeful smile that was on my face as the nurses and doctors were running away from us when we walked in. They did not even want to talk to us we stunk so badly. Everyone in the place had on surgical masks and more than one gagged. I did feel sorry for the family that brought their dad in with a heart attack.
They had us in and stitched up so quickly it had to set records. So quick in fact they never gave him anything like anti-biotic or antiseptic or anything. Remember this part about the anti-biotic.
Now our wives know nothing about any of these adventures so we think. Except my mom had woke up and wondered why her garage light was on and her car sitting outside at 2 am. We saw her waiting for us as we pulled up to finish skinning the skunk. She was not impressed to say the least. She called our wives, who were up waiting for us. We stunk, were bloody, and slept by ourselves.
I went back the next morning to skin my skunk. I got it skinned and was scraping the fat off the hide when the stink of all this became too much for me. I lost my breakfast (some of it through my nose) all over the skunk hide. I had enough, Swearing off skunks I threw my hide away and went home to nurse my wounds.
Hunting partner #1 washed his hide in gas to unstink it and ended up with a big beautiful black and white skunk hide hanging in his living room.
A couple days later he got sick and stayed home from work. He ended up in the hospital with a BAD infection. Wonder why?
The trauma of all this had caused me to black out the worst moments. Stuff like the wife nagging about skunk stink, me sleeping in a separate room, gagging, puking, the skunk in the freezer.
It was around March when my wife told me the freezer in the back porch was unplugged. We were trying to remember when the last time we had opened it when out of the depths of my mind I remembered the skunk in the freezer. I thought it was very brave of me to tell her it was in there. She did not even comment, just gave me the look. I went out to the back porch and cracked the door about a 1/8-inch. Yep it stunk. It stunk BAD. I backed my pickup up to the back porch and hunting partner #1 came over and helped me wrestle the full freezer into the pickup. I hauled it up to hunting partner#2’s burn pit and pushed it off.
2 months later my dad went and got the freezer and cleaned it out and still uses it to this day.
I swear this is a true story; I have the emotional scars to prove it. I still don’t have a skunk hide for my wall and some day I plan to have one. My two boys love to hunt and trap maybe in a few more years I can talk them into doing it for me.
My hunting partner and myself had decided one winter (1995/96) that it would be great if we had a couple skunk hides hanging on the wall at home. Thus started an adventure that was to test the limits of Emergency Room care at the local hospital and the resolve of our marriages.
This might be rather long but the whole odyssey from start to finish spanned several months and to not tell the whole tale would be disgracing the torment and physical anguish that we went through.
The first thing we had to do was get us a couple skunks. The trick to killing a skunk is to do it without him spraying. We ended up with three skunks.
SKUNK 1
I was trapping at the time and knew that sooner or later I would have a skunk in a trap. It was not long after the fateful decision to tan us some skunk hides that I found a skunk in a trap one morning on my trap line. Every time I approached him he acted mighty aggravated. I think he might have suspected what we had in store from him. I was afraid that he would spray if I got any closer and I was not close enough to give him a killing head shot with my pistol. (pre-Browning Buckmark). I had to therefore shoot him in the head with a rifle. Problem was the weeds were too tall for me to see the skunk when I backed away. I ended up standing in the bed of my pickup and leaning over the cab with a Marlin 39A with open sights. One shot from about 40 yards and I had me one big dead skunk. I walked over and was elated that I hit him in the head and he died without spraying. As I gleefully carried him back to my pickup with visions of tanned skunk hides on the wall I nonchalantly tossed him over the tailgate and into the pickup.
Bad mistake. When he hit the floor he let go every drop of the putrid, gagging liquid he had reserved for me. Now when I did this I was standing directly behind the tailgate. The tailgate that was made out of the diamond mesh steel sYep, I got sprayed from about 2 feet away. I puked and regained my composure. I thought maybe we could wash the stink out of him if we had to and decided to keep him. For lack of a better place to put him I wrapped him in plastic bags and buried him in the bottom of the chest freezer inside the back porch. Remember this for later.
SKUNK 2 and 3
It was colder than a well diggers butt and we knew all the critters would be holed up tight. We were raccoon hunting and were running the dogs inside abandoned farms houses and buildings. These old falling down places are favorites for raccoons to sleep out a cold snap.
Me and hunting partner #2 were in the basement of an old house. Hunting partner #2 did not approve of the skunk adventures. It would even be safe to say he thought we were crazy and was deathly afraid of skunks. The dogs were rooting around the old buildings and we were in the old house. We were looking in nooks and crannies for old Mr. raccoon. There was a faint musky smell of skunk but it was not strong enough to get my hopes up. Nor was it strong enough to send my faint hearted hunting partner fleeing for his life. I looked under a chunk of concrete from the broken up floor and saw a patch of black with some white on it. Now to get into the basement you had to come down some rickety stairs that ended about 3 feet from the floor.
As soon as I yelled SKUNK! Hunting partner #2 cleared that 3-foot jump and was up the stairs and closed the door. He would open the door to talk to me but would not come back down the stairs to help. I had to form an escape plan in case the skunk sprayed when I shot it. I piled some rubble up below where the stairs ended to help me in my jump for freedom in case I had to run for it. I lay on the floor and stuck my pistol in the hole. I had to scoot way over against the wall and kind of curl up to see the head. I could make out a nose on the curled up skunk and knew the head was right above the nose. I shot and did a running leap for the rubble,stairs,and door. I came stumbling out and see hunting partner laughing his head off at the way I came flying out of there. We slowly opened the door back up and sniffed. Everything seemed to be fine and hunting partner #2 even followed me back into the evil depths of skunk ****. Well the skunk was dead and did not spray. His last final kicks brought him out into the open. When the dead skunk kicked out in the open he made it possible for the other skunk to get out of the hole. Now we had no idea there were two of them. Hunting partner #2 pretty much ran me over as we flew screaming up the stairs. I was close behind him. Skunk #2 was shot from upstairs in the head with a rifle very uneventfully.
Now being a thinking man I knew better than to throw the skunks and making them spray. I also had brought along a couple empty bread sacks just in case we were lucky enough to get into some skunks. It took quite a bit of pleading to get hunting partner #2 to help me stuff the skunks in the sacks. The little bit of odor that was on them had me gagging and he puked. We gently laid them in the back of HIS pickup and took off. He made me tie long strings to the bags in case the perfume came out. The idea was we could grab the strings and pull them out without having to touch the bags.
We got home with no problems.
Skinning Skunks
The next day at work I gleefully told hunting partner #1 about our fine luck. We excitedly made plans to do the deed that night when we came in from raccoon hunting. The day passed with the slowness that only a sense of adventure (or impending doom) can bring. We got off work and grabbed the coonhounds and took off. The ensuing events have caused me to forget how many raccoons we got that night, but I do know at the end of the night we had a passel of skinning to do.
Now normally we do all the skinning in my garage. I have a furnace in there and a winch that pulls the hides off the carcass. Conveniently I was out of propane and we had to use my dad’s garage. We backed my mom’s car out and hung up my dad’s skinning gambrel. The raccoons were all skinned and we were eyeballing the skunks. Hunting partner #1 had no prior experience with the white striped little devils and was relying on my instructions. I told him to do it just like a raccoon but to be ever so careful around the hind end where these little glands were.
Now the problem with using my dad’s skinning gambrel is that unlike my winch setup we had to cut and pull the hide off by hand. I was in the process of scraping the fat off a raccoon hide when I looked over at hunting partner #1. He was holding the long, sharp, very pointy fillet knife in such a way that if he slipped it would cut him. Just when I was about ready to tell him he was going to cut his hand off the knife slipped.
The knife went through the nasty little gland by the skunk’s hind end and into his hand by the wrist. It poked through he back side by his knuckles. There was blood SQUIRTING into the air and the garage floor was quickly covered. The stench was strong and immediate. We were both crying and gagging as we ran to the pickup and headed for the hospital. It was below feezing and we were driving down the road with the windows open and our heads hanging out. He had wrapped a skinning (dirty) rag around his hand and was holding it tight. I have to give him credit there was hardly any blood in the pickup.
Now if any of you have ever experienced slow service in the Emergency Room then you will appreciate the gleeful smile that was on my face as the nurses and doctors were running away from us when we walked in. They did not even want to talk to us we stunk so badly. Everyone in the place had on surgical masks and more than one gagged. I did feel sorry for the family that brought their dad in with a heart attack.
They had us in and stitched up so quickly it had to set records. So quick in fact they never gave him anything like anti-biotic or antiseptic or anything. Remember this part about the anti-biotic.
Now our wives know nothing about any of these adventures so we think. Except my mom had woke up and wondered why her garage light was on and her car sitting outside at 2 am. We saw her waiting for us as we pulled up to finish skinning the skunk. She was not impressed to say the least. She called our wives, who were up waiting for us. We stunk, were bloody, and slept by ourselves.
I went back the next morning to skin my skunk. I got it skinned and was scraping the fat off the hide when the stink of all this became too much for me. I lost my breakfast (some of it through my nose) all over the skunk hide. I had enough, Swearing off skunks I threw my hide away and went home to nurse my wounds.
Hunting partner #1 washed his hide in gas to unstink it and ended up with a big beautiful black and white skunk hide hanging in his living room.
A couple days later he got sick and stayed home from work. He ended up in the hospital with a BAD infection. Wonder why?
The trauma of all this had caused me to black out the worst moments. Stuff like the wife nagging about skunk stink, me sleeping in a separate room, gagging, puking, the skunk in the freezer.
It was around March when my wife told me the freezer in the back porch was unplugged. We were trying to remember when the last time we had opened it when out of the depths of my mind I remembered the skunk in the freezer. I thought it was very brave of me to tell her it was in there. She did not even comment, just gave me the look. I went out to the back porch and cracked the door about a 1/8-inch. Yep it stunk. It stunk BAD. I backed my pickup up to the back porch and hunting partner #1 came over and helped me wrestle the full freezer into the pickup. I hauled it up to hunting partner#2’s burn pit and pushed it off.
2 months later my dad went and got the freezer and cleaned it out and still uses it to this day.
I swear this is a true story; I have the emotional scars to prove it. I still don’t have a skunk hide for my wall and some day I plan to have one. My two boys love to hunt and trap maybe in a few more years I can talk them into doing it for me.