huntersdog;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that other than dull fillet knives the week treated you acceptably and you're well.
On the Rapala filet knife question, I've got a fair bit of first hand experience as I appear to have become addicted to ice fishing for Yellow Perch on a couple local lakes which have a 20 fish limit.
For knives I've got an ancient birch handled 4" that I picked up at a flea market, then another that's about 15 years old and liked them so much I bought my fishing buddy one last year. We can swap them back and forth and can't tell any difference in the steel between them.
They are a bit fun initially to sharpen because they're so flexible the angles change if you're not quite gentle putting them on.
As mentioned too, once they're sharp, trying to not let them get really dull again if possible is a good plan.
While I've got nearly every sharpening device known to man other than a Lansky type setup, they might actually be okay here as it'd support the blade and keep the angles true.
On mine and buddy's however, I start with a diamond, then go to a white Hard Arkansas and finish with an 8" MDF wheel doped with polishing compound.
I prefer the MDF wheel to a leather strop wheel of the same size on fillet and paring knives as it's easier to see what's going on with the harder surface.
For perch, the edge I'm looking for is one that cuts paper easily, so I'll test on that rather than shaving sharp. If it cleanly slices paper, it will slide through perch hide slick and easy too.
Hopefully that made sense and was useful to you or someone out there.
Good luck with sharpening and with fishing as well!
Dwayne
