What knife/knives are best for dressing out a whitetail deer?

Re: What knife/knives are best for dressing out a whitetail deer? Pete E #2348905 08/03/08
Joined: Jun 2002 Posts: 131,773 Likes: 21 USA T The_Real_Hawkeye OP Campfire Sage
OP The_Real_Hawkeye Campfire Sage T Joined: Jun 2002 Posts: 131,773 Likes: 21 USA	Originally Posted by Pete E TRH, Both of those knives are well up to the task of dressing out a whitetail; my preference would be the first one as the antler handle looks as if it would offer a better grip when wet with blood and it also has a more positive finger guard. Whether you need a small saw for the field or not depends on whether you intend to open the chest cavity fully or leave it closed until you get home. The main advantage of leaving it closed is that it reduces contamination as you extract the carcass. If you intend to open it in the field, I would recommend buying a small T handled saw such as the Gerber E-Z Saw...It does the job with the minimum of fuss and no matter how good the quality of your blade steel, splitting rib cages is a bit brutal on the knife... There is a lot to be said for using a cheap and cheerful knife for deer work save wrecking or loosing your quality one.. I like a Frosts Clipper with SS trilaminated blade They are soft enough to sharpen easily in the field and at around $15 its no great loss if you loose it...The handle and sheath are synthetic so are easy to keep clean and sterilize from time to time... As for butchering afterwards, I would recommend you get two specialist butchers knives; a 6" boner and a 10" or 12" Steak knife. I use plastic handled Victronox (sp?) which are cheap but good quality and the sort you would find in a meat packing establishment. You will also need a steel to sharpen these, and possibly a proper butchers saw..I like the ones with a 12" or 15" blade...This will come in handy if you decide to be a bit more adventurous with the cuts you decide to remove from the carcass, some of which are "bone in".. Finally, I suggest you get a good DVD on butchering as it makes life much easier..I recommend "White-tailed deer processing" from Gamebutcher I 've bought a couple of DVD's from him and he really is a nice gent to deal with, and who runs a family based deer cutting operation.. The DVD's are very good, and are aimed at the novice butcher who is only dealing with a couple of carcasses a year at home.. This guy also sells the knives and steels, but I already bought mine locally so I can't comment what they are like... Regards, Pete Thanks. I will look into the DVD.

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