Video: How to Flesh a Raccoon

In this three-part video series, we'll teach you how to skin, flesh, and stretch a raccoon hide. If you don't have a tail stripper handy, try Clay Newcomb's two-stick trick. And don't let that meat go to waste, it might just surprise you how delicious it really is.

One of the first steps after a successful deer hunt is skinning your deer, after which the skin itself often becomes an afterthought as you attend to the important process of filling up the freezer with meat. Sure, there are services you can send your deer hide to and pay for it to be taxidermied or...

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...