I wouldn't get your hopes to high on making last years prices atleast early in the season as they're sitting on a whole bunch ofcoon that didn't sell last year... my buyer is telling his trappers to wait till late this month to start and only bring in the biggest ones...

In my area the buyers all get together and discuss how much they are going to buy fur for, that way each of them is getting a fair amount of fur. Also what we do is skin everything ourselves. Turn them inside out, roll the fur up and then freeze them in heavy duty trashbags. around the end of the season we thaw the hides and take them in all at once.

For the sake of you buyer let him know if you plan on doing something like that, cause dropping 800 or so hides on him can be real inconvienent.