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

Watchmaker
Love the Buck knives too! Also great knives;
Al Mar, Cold Steel, Gerber and Katz.
And here some real nice custom hunting knives
http://www.messerschmiede-kuenzi.ch/messer/jagd1/jagd1_uebersicht.shtm
and some bigger stuff
http://www.messerschmiede-kuenzi.ch/messer/jeep1/jeep1_uebersicht.shtm

my favorites are the buck like yours, except mine has the gut hook, it by far keeps the best edge the longest, my second is my old timer sharp finger, and last but not least is my wyoming knife a very simple but effective tool. I bought my wife a very expensive german made knife with a stag handle and a stag engraved on the blade, it is a very nice knife but I found very quickly that the steel they use will discolor quickly from moisture so now after every use I wash it and coat it in olive oil. I own about twenty hunting knives but the ones listed are the only ones I use, I'm starting to hand some of the others down to my kids, I'm starting with the lower dollar stuff until they learn to care for them and then I'll give them the nicer stuff.

I myself love the hunt for the perfect blade for the hunt .I have several or maybe a few more aswell . I carry everyday a Buck 110 custon confederate flag for my daily task as a Paramedic for the hunt i have several knives of alaska but my Favo-Right blade is a custom knife made here in Virginia by Virginia Blade Knife Co. They make several models and all are top of the line very functional and stay sharp with very little work. You should check them out bet you get one. Made in Lynchburg Virginia web page is http://www.vablade.com

Here is one that I made for a hunting buddy,It is made of5/32" ATS34 at RC 61/62 the blade is 1" wide by 3 1/2 " long and is flat ground and mirror polished with file work on the spine. The guard and pins is 416ss. The handle is Butterscotch with two Black lines paperr micarta.
This Knife did all the field dressing chores and skinning of three Blacktail deer opening weekend of the Calif. season.
Hope you like it.





DAVE,
KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY BUT SHOOT SILLYWET: SPONGE BOB FOREVER!!!!

I haven’t figured out how to put pictures on the posts yet, but I put a few of my favorites on the bragging board. The Journeyman Skinner is the Buck-skinning version of the American Blade-smith.

KaBar is making quite a few nice knives at reasonable prices. The mim KaBar and the Warthog have both performed quite nicely in the field. Benchmade also makes a very fine blade. I have bought 3 folding Benchmades an all there have been wonderful.

Duane

Handcannons, that's some nice work! The file work is very impressive.

Thank you, I really like doing file work. I have another knife in the Classifieds(miscellaneous) Dave

That's a beauty too, but more than I can justify spending on a knife.

Hey I understand,Custom Knives arn't for everyone. I just put it in here as this was a Hunting Knife article and this is a Hunting knife that is used
Dave

That’s just fine, your work is beautifully. It is nice to see a craftsman take pride in his work.

Duane

Thank you very much for the nice comments,I've been doing this for over 30years but still like to get the ego stroked