For the first 25 years of my career as a wildlife biologist, I used a Buck 110 folder for everything in the field. When we went into the lab, I used commercial butchering knives and scalpels to do necropsies, but that 110 was the only knife in my pocket or on my belt until it disappeared from my luggage at the airport in Kodiak, AK. I keep thinking that I will buy another, but I just can't believe that it would be the same...
This ^^^^^^
I have a Buck 501 Squire folder like this (still have it, though). Opening day of deer season in Texas is about November 1, but it still can be 85-90 degrees in the afternoon. One such day, we killed three deer from our camp and needed to take them apart and get the meat on ice pronto. I usually carry two or three knives. When one gets dull, I just close it and switch to another, leaving cleanup until the meat is squared away and re-sharpening till campfire time.
We were well into the third deer when I realized I had never switched knives. Back then, that was a $25 knife; even today, it can be had for $40-$50. But it holds its own against the expensive mass production knives, and even alongside the customs.
