SOUL has zero to do with using a knife. But if you want to thats cool.
I"m just utilitarian and use what works best for me.
I"ve seen all kinds of blades snapped over years of guiding, by idiots. YOu can even snap these blades if you don't pay attention. I did 2 weeks ago in a hurry. Hadn't done that in a long time.
BUT if my little wimpy assed Havalon can take a moose all the way down to skinned, gutted, quartered, deboned, caped, etc with no help... its more than enough for me. Cheap enough.
And while you are sharpening I"m further down the road.
Pretty much sums it up. There's a reason hundreds of elk guides use Havalon knives. I saw a guide at a show two years ago who had two Havalons on his table. I asked him what he thought of them, and he said the previous season he wanted to see how far he could go with one blade. He skinned one bison and X elk on one blade. If I told you the number it would strain credulity. He did use a steel to keep the edge up, but it was a pretty impressive feat, nonetheless.
Besides that, think about a guide's priorities. He wants something that works, not something that has "soul" (whatever that is). He wants to take weight off because he's walking miles in rough country with a load of meat on his back. So rather than take two or three knives with "soul," plus tools to resharpen them, he takes a Havalon with a few extra blades. Saves time. Saves energy. Saves money.
When his clients saw him using the Havalon, they all wanted one, so he became a dealer and buys enough to resell to clients. The two he had on his table were what he had left from the previous season.
I carry a Havalon every day. And by the way, the blades are not made in China. They are surgical scalpels, and they are made in India, the same place where the blades are made that your doctor uses to operate on your gut. If that makes a difference to you, I suppose you could ask your doctor to use an American-made knife with soul. Good luck with that.
A couple of incidental facts:
1. I know several doctors who hunt, and all of them use surgical scalpels for field dressing and skinning. So do all the taxidermists I know. They just want something that works.
2. A few other companies have capitalized on the Havalon idea, and are trying to compete against them. But Havalon's parent company, Havels, is a medical supply company and the blade Havalon uses is proprietary. It's better than the standard scalpel blades others use. It's more resistant to breaking and more user-friendly. (The pictured Havalon knife earlier in this thread is not wearing the Havalon proprietary blade.)
Steve.
