KNIVES FOR HUNTING

[watchmaker]

KNIVES FOR HUNTING

Many of us hunters of long have a love affair with the tool of a successful hunt; the knife.
In our minds, we have this idea of the perfect knife that will fit our hand like a glove; that will perform surgery like a scalpel; that will not need to be sharpened ever, and will remove a cape as well as field dress and skin anything from a deer to a moose.

In our search for the perfect blade, we accumulate many of them that are probably as good as the best knife ever made, but in our search for Nirvana we keep adding new blades and hoping to do enough hunting to test all of them on game.

On the other hand, some hunters are not interested at all in the tool. My friend Frank that has probably field dressed at least fifty deer with the same Buck hunter knife in the last 20 years removes it from the pack once every year in hunting season to field dress a deer or two, and the blade goes back into the same pack to wait for next year’s job.
Perhaps his father being a butcher has something to do with it.  He was taught how to field dress a deer early in life, and to him it is just a necessary job that has to be performed.  To others like me it is a culmination of all our efforts and should be done as elegantly and as clean and bloodless as possible and with the most effective of tools.

I have found in my long search for the perfect blade that many of today’s knives in the market qualify as superb blades for the job.  A good knife blade of 3 ½ to 4 inches will be plenty for most chores.  Preferences in my case are for the drop-point blades, but I have had good service from clip points or other shapes.

Some of us like a fancy wood or antler handle or perhaps some engraving on the blade. Those I label dress knives and are a great way to stir a conversation between fellow hunters. I am one with that type of taste and will always appear at camp with a fancy blade. The truth is that I perform all of my field dressings with a plain one that I keep hidden in my pack.

Here is one of my fancy blades, the Browning model 122 one of one thousand, and the one that does the actual field dressing, a Buck 192 Vanguard.



Best wishes

Watchmaker

[beemanbeme]

I keep 2 of the vanguards in my pack just in case I make a mistake with one.  Along with a small diamond hone.  Yeah, kinda paranoid.  But nothings worse than trying to gut a deer with a dull knife.

[elmer]

I have two Buck knives that I carry with me. One is the Zipper Model 191BR that I keep in my daypack. The other is the Vanguard with the rubberized handle that stays in my skinning kit. I really like the grip of the rubberized handle when skinning.

My other "knife" that is in my skinning kit is a box cutter with replaceable blades. I use it for cutting through the skin / hair on hogs. That dulls knives fast.

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

       I usually have two knives in my pack all fixed blades and a Buck Crosslock on my belt. The fixed blades are an old carbon steel Wade and Butcher "Boone" knife which has a bowie clipped blade about5" long and lather washer handle with red rubber and brass strips for decoration. It's away just now having a new sheaf made as the originally is worn badly, the other is a Boker Tree brand drop pint with rubber type handle with a SS blade? I also keep a Boker stag horned handle drop point European knife which hasa 5" slimmer blade in the knife pocket of my hunting trouser (pants). When going away to hunt I also include a specialised Cudman skinner which my frined in Missouri was so impressed with the way it performed I got him one and sent it over to him.

[drdougrx]

I use one of three knives.  All buck.  Either a buck personal with a 4 1/2" thin upswept blade, or a 5" pathfinder (another rather thin blade) and a 580 titanium folder (they don't make it anymore, it's a 110 folder with a very thin titanium handle with finger grooves).  I bring all three with me and it really depends on what I'm hunting and where or how I'm feeling that day.

I have randal mades, doziers, siskas,  a lanpson folder and a few others, but, for the price of replacement, i'd rather use a buck.

just my opinion.

[rockbilly]

I own several nice custom made knifes, but my all time favorites are a case double bladed model 6265, and a Camillus Air Crew survival knife, both were issued to me in Viet Nam.  I wouldn't even attempt to estimate the number of deer and elk these knifes have processed.  The old Case holds a fairly good edge, and makes an excellent skinning knife, the survival knife does the heavy work.

I started using these after loosing a Randell in the swamps near Alexandria, La.

[SDS-GEN]

I used to use bucks now I use custom knives like these.

[dukkillr]

No large knives for me.  I used to carry a custom deer antler W.C. Davis, I've also carried fixed and folding bucks.  Now it's one of these two.  I've got two of the old timers 77 OTs.  They've got 2 thin sharp blades that make great caping, breasting, gutting or any other type blades.  I like the high carbon blades because they get sharper, and I like having 2 so I can get through a whole deer without sharpening (usually).  A couple of guys I guided on a duck hunt in '05 gave me the case knife.  It won't get as sharp, but I like the guys who gave it to me.  The rounded blade seems to be nice for skinning but I'm more used to the muskrat style.

[watchmaker]

Hi guys,
here is another of the blades I have, this is a Browning model 65 (one of one thousand).

I like those stag handles, I have several knives with them!



And here is a detail of the file work in the handle.



Best regards
Watcmaker

[teddy12b]

I bought a Case XX Changer to use while deer hunting.  I have to admit that it holds an excellent edge and worked very well.  In the model I bought I have two actual blades, a guthook, and a saw.  It's a nice combination and works very well for me.  I keep this on my hip and a smaller misc pocket knife and a fixed blade in my backpack as backup.  My favorite knife would be my grandpa's Case fixed blade.  He used it on while he'd go elk hunting.  It made him very happy when I told him that it played a part in the dressing of my first buck.  It's a knife that will always be in my family.