Video: How to Case Skin a Raccoon

In this three-part video series, we'll teach you how to skin, flesh, and stretch a raccoon hide. After you rid your hide of excess fat and muscle, you're one step closer to the coonskin hat of your dreams.

On a dark winter night in 1994, my best friend’s uncle taught me how to skin a raccoon using a short rope, two green sticks, and a knife. He emphasized getting green sticks just the right size and not cutting too shallow around the ears and eyes. He didn’t refer to it this way, but the method he...

In my experience, this is the best method for skinning squirrels, especially if they were killed with a shotgun or have a torn-up hide. I call it the “Batesville Method,” but a more descriptive name would be the dip-and-snip. First, dip the squirrel in water. This keeps most of the hair off the meat...