Before you settle on one of the new
SOG knives for hunting, there are a few things you should Consider. What animals will you hunt? How will you dress and butcher the animal? Do you plan to have a mount made? How do you need to carry the knife and is size or weight a factor? All these things might not seem vital at first glance, but get into the elk woods with a knife poorly suited to skinning, caping or deboning and they suddenly become clear.
Small game and upland birds are typically easily handled with the average pocket knife. There are , however , knives in particular designed for little game. As the size and weight of the animal increase, the toughness of the hide increases. That pocket knife you use on rabbits or quail might get the task finished on a bear, but it does not go to be easy or agreeable. Neither is field dressing a cottontail with an enormous, fixed-blade sheath knife.
We'll stick with big game. After the kill, your initial consideration will likely be field dressing or gutting.
And speaking of deboning ... Try it with a dedicated stomach hook sometime. The proper tool for the job, as the proverb goes. Now let's compare the types discussed so far
Dedicated stomach hooks
To chop open the belly, or paunch, WITHOUT cutting into the guts and making a huge, stinking, contaminating mess. The lifeless tip doesn't nick the tummy as the inverted'U'-shaped cutting edge zips open the belly slick as a whistle! Sort of like one of those fancy letter openers.
This is a regular knife, just about any style blade, but with the tum hook built right in. )
Skinning knives
The rounded cutting edge facilitates cutting the membrane that holds the skin to the animal. You use it in a sort or'swiping' or'rocking' motion, as opposed to'slicing'. The blunter tip helps you avoid punctures in the hide and meat as you progress. As with any knife, there are variations and adaptations but a skinner nearly always has this rounded, blunt-tipped appearance.
often thought of as a'butcher knife' or merely a'boning knife'. The comparatively narrow blade helps close, clean cuts so you don't waste any meat. Then again, a deboning knife could function as a good general typically hunting knife.
Caping knives
A good caping knife sometimes has a slim, thin ... Blade and a fairly small, somewhat ergonomic handle. Some caping knives have pointed blades, some rounded. Just remember ... Control and delicacy. Any unwelcome hole will need to be patched by your taxidermist ( most likely at added cost to you ) and any'missing' hide is not easily or inexpensively replaced.
You do not need to employ a sledge hammer to drive finish nails.
Blade styles
so far as hunting knives go, there are 3 basic blade styles drop point, clip point and skinning.
The drop point is an excellent blade design for big game. The blade is normally heavier and thicker, making for a solid, robust knife capable of splitting the sternum and even the ribs of all but the biggest, hardest big game animal. The drop point is an outstanding choice for hunting. Clip point blades are somewhat thinner than drop points and the point is intensified. It is also a bit flatter from cutting edge to back and makes a superb all-purpose knife, hunting aside. Most hunters would agree that, if you have just one hunting knife, the clip point is not almost as good as the drop point.
Many skinning knives are very equivalent in design to the drop point. The skinner's curve is generally more extreme, starting more in the middle than at the handle, and the curve tends to have a bigger radius than that of the drop point. Some very old skinner designs, not very much in production as hunting knives nowadays, have an almost crescent shape and often much longer blades. They still see use in commercial operations but are not terribly'handy' to tote around camp or the hunting woods.
Fixed or Folding?
That announced, there are some with interchangeable blades, and even some that have 2 blades, one projecting from each end of the handle ... For our purposes, these are still fixed blade knives.
They're obviously longer than a folder of the same blade size, so not as compact for storage or carry. All but the smallest/shortest will, by requirement, be carried on the belt or in a pack.
Folders are far more compact. Pivots ultimately wear out and, often, a locking mechanism fails. They are also a bit harder to keep clean. Not a big deal and not all that hard to scrub, just something to think about.
there's a knife for every task you'll encounter in hunting. Each task begs the correct knife. Does this mean you'll need to carry three, four, 5 knives each time you set out from camp? Naturally not. With one well-designed, well-made knife, maybe two, you can finish any of those tasks. The options are there, you know what they are. Now you just make up your intelligence based totally on what you know and how much you can spend.
