I killed and skinned a rattler today and have a question regarding some of the posts I've read. I hear people refer to the fleshing process and I don't fully understand. I skinned the snake like peeling a sock and the skin came off darn near clean. There were a few spots of blood and cleerish tissue that I removed, but, I can't seem to kind any more. I read that it is a tedious process, however, does this just depend on the type of snake? Any advice will be appreciated.
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Trust me there is a lot of flesh on the skin.
I use the fish skinning knife (serrated edge). I use dry preserve to help the blade catch the flesh. I scrape from head to tail and from the center towards me (center of skin towards belly scales).
This process has to be done. I then wash the skin with liquid detergent and rinse to get the dry preserve off, or when it dries you will have white spots from the dry preserve.
Kerby...
Thanks for the info Kerby, however, I've got one more question. What is dry preserve? Also, I went ahead and put the skin in the freezer while I iron out the details. Is this o.k. to do before removing th eflesh? I sure hope so because if it's not, I guess it's too late. Judging by what I've read so far on the other posts I'll probably invest in a Rittles or WASCO and steer away from the home remedies. Anyone who reads this, thanks for the shared knowledge of this forum. I would've never guessed there to be such an extensive forum on this subject. Thanks a lot.
Because it catches the meat. It is hard to flesh a snake skin when it is all wet and slimy on the inside. You can probably use flour, etc..
I've always used dry preserve because thirty years ago that's what I had hanging around and it works.
Kerby...
I tried flour and it worked like a charm. I understand now what you mean about the flesh. It did take some elbow grease but now the skin feels thinner and lighter. Once I rolled it up you could tell a big difference in the size from before. I did, however, buy a WASCO kit so I could complete the tanning process. Thanks for the help.