Home Forums Gear Knives and Blades Favorite job-specific deer knives ???

I know many of you have too many "favorite" knives to pick a true favorite but if you narrow the task down, what would be your pick of the knives you have?

Best knife you have for gutting a deer in the field?

Best knife you have for skinning a deer in the field or back at camp/home?

Best knife you have for breaking down/deboning a deer at camp/home?

And your favorite all-around deer knife, if you have one?

Thanks, RS

ive never gutted a deer in the field, always cleaned at the skinning rack.

A handy knife for that is the Outdoor edge swing 'n blaze. Kinda a community knife at camp.

I usually use one of my Winstons.


And i Debone deer while hanging, I dont gut it either. I'll reach in and get the inner lions ( sweet meat)


All around favorite? CAnt go wrong with a Winston #43/45

The perfect store bought knife? Spyderco moran.

having had and used some fairly expensive knives, these days i mostly
use a forschner or an old hickory boning knife for the whole process.
the one i've used these last few years is an old boner that some friends
gave me from a box of junk they'd bought at an auction. i figure it's either
an olde forge or an old hickory. it's so worn and old that any lettering is
long gone, but it's razor sharp.

it took me a lot of years to figure out to use what professional butchers
and meat cutters use all day long to make a living with. it's way easier than
trying to use some of the itty bitty knives i've used to dress animals with.

The stone handled knives I posted have a VG-10 steel blade that is incredible at slicing, They just stay sharp forever. When they do get a little dull, it's a simple thing to put a couple strokes on a crock stick and they're back to shaving sharp.

I used one I made about four-five years ago with a nice walnut handle to gut, skin, quarter, debone the necks, remove the back straps and do a lot of work separating muscles in the butchering process for nine consecutive deer without resharpening it. After the ninth deer, the blade was still sharp enough to keep going, but it wasn't shaving sharp any more. That was done over a two years and part of a third. One of the years, I didn't shoot any deer until muzzle loader season in December when it was consistently below zero which made skinning a real bitch.

Prior to using these, I had been using a KOA Jaeger Hunter which has a similar blade shape but is D2 steel. It's a fine knife, but not as wear resistant as the VG-10

When I break down the skinned deer I just make a quick slice around the joints and then reach inside with the tip and cut the cruciates. Deboning doesn't take much, and the small tip is really handy and makes quick work of it around the joints. I will generally use a more rounded tip when I debone the scapula, but other wise these little knives work as good as any and better than the vast majority. My father used a little Marbles with a blade not too different for all the same work. The blade was of course just carbon steel and as such required sharpening after a single deer or sooner. It was also susceptible to rusting which these are impervious to. The blade is pretty ideal for everything I do, it is not an ideal skinning knife, but it makes the fist slices up the legs better than any knife I have used and works OK for the little bit of cutting I need if I can skin them while they're still warm.

I did the handles on the pair I posted in stone because I had access to the lapidary tools necessary and because a knife as good as these deserves something special. I see no reason why a near perfect knife can't be beautiful as well as durable.

Can't count the number of bucks/bulls I've seen taken apart with a sharpfinger, but it's more than a few....

That being said, for my $$$ nowadays, Howe mountain knives gets my bidness..... stupid good blades...

for over 25 years, a Randall #11 did virtually all of my deer and hog field work. Currently, I have been using a Loveless style drop point by Rick Menefee, several nice drop points by Tim Olt, a very nice L. Rossi small knife and a good performing Sodbuster style fixed blade by Gene Ingram. My current 'favorite' may well be one of Rick Menefee's Little Dumpling knives. It excels at everything.
Through the years, I have come to favor a good stainless steel over carbon steel knives. S30V and CM 154 have proved to be very good.
My animal processing knives always ride in the day pack, never on my belt. When I am hunting, I carry a sturdy camp style knife as a belt knife, for those tasks you run into other than cutting hide and meat.

Miles,
You must have some exceptional VG10 and really poor D2...

My favorite hunting knife is a Winston #43. I've tried many and keep coming back to some variation of a 43. This is the knife I actually carry in the woods and field dress whitetails with. It could be used for skinning/quartering, but I haven't tried it yet. I do have a Winston #92 I'll be trying this year to breakdown the animal once it's hanging, but in the past a Bark River drop point gunny has been my favorite to complete the skinning task. Once it's quartered, I use 3 different forshner boning knives to debone and cut up my meat.

I make no bones about it, I believe that all the VG-10 I have IS really exceptional knife steel. I only have half a dozen D2 blades as opposed to twenty give or take VG-10. All of the D2 is by different makers. The bulk of the VG-10 came after the D2. I got my first D2 back when I was in high school. The best D2 I own was made by Dale Atkerson and hardened/tempered by Rick Menefee from what Dale told me. It's a brute of a knife, and I wouldn't hesitate to use it to chop down a red oak and expect it to come out undamaged and still sharp. But...as far as staying sharp through a lot of cutting and ease of sharpening, neither it nor any other D2 I have or have had is all that close. I do have one VG-10 that while it is a nice cutter, it is actually more on the level of D2, and not comparable to the rest of my D2. I have one VG-10 that will hold an edge as well as the rest of them, but it is a bitch to sharpen, I think due to blade design.

This is my opinion. It is based on hands on working with 7 or 8 steels starting from scratch (from the mill) and going to completion plus a variety of production blades (steels) over the last 25 years or so.

Given comparable 1- geometry, 2- heat treatment and 3- sharpening it is very difficult for a user to be able to definitively tell the difference
in actual hands on use of the MANY good steels being used out there.

When you do find that one special knife, it is something special to you. Kinda like finding a wife. There are a million other ones out there
that if they had come along first would have been THE number one, but.......

As we know, this discussion started around the campfire about a hundred thousand years ago and is good for another million.

Tim

Yeah, geometry matched to steel matching sharpening to the job are really important. The D2 brute that Dale made for me sharpened like the VG-10 blades wouldn't work near so good as it does. Nor would the VG-10 blades be at their best sharpened like the D2.

I would say though that the difference in geometry with a knife set up like most VG-10 for slicing work does have a tendency to stand out enough to notice. I can make some of my knives slice like VG-10 by sharpening them to a very steep angle like the VG-10 blades but I do not own any alternate steels that will not lose that edge much faster because they shouldn't be sharpened to that steep an angle. I'd like to try some S30, S90 and S110 though, just waiting to find the right blade to try them with.

Don't know much about a specific knife for deer but friend of mine doing bow hunting with a group, always carry in his backpack a set https://goo.gl/zeZ33N of course in a bag (not the plastic case! )

I hate carrying a fixed blade knife on my belt when hunting and I don't wear a pack so I prefer to just stick a folder in my pocket. I've got Buck 110's and 112's, Uncle Henry bear paws, etc. and while they work fine are a bit bulky and heavy. The ones I use the most nowdays are an old Puma 970 Game Warden and an old nylon handled Parker. Both are a bunch lighter and thinner than the Bucks and schrades and I can have the guts out of a deer in about 2 minutes with either.

I've never tried any other technique than the "conventional", field dress and drag down to the house. Usually about a 150 to 500 yard drag. By "conventional", I mean no hacking on the pelvis or ribs, which would leave it open to all the debris from the drag, not to mention the awkward flopping around of the legs during the drag. Nor do I quarter and bone in the field. I do my skinning and butchering at the house.

I've experimented with at least a dozen different knives. I always come back to my Buck (103) Skinner that I bought when I was in my mid to late teens, my first "real" hunting knife. It just feels right to me. It isn't the optimum for coring the anus, I use something longer and skinnier for that, but other than that.. it's perfect for me. Yeah, given my druthers, it would be nice if it were made out of a more exotic steel, say S30V or something, and I greatly admire a pretty ironwood handle, but it would have to be shaped exactly the same.

Mostly, I use a Case Trapper or a 110 to gut, skin, and quarter deer. Then a Dexter boning or some kind of fillet knife to cut meat off bones, trim silverskin away, and get the cuts ready for the freezer and grinder

I hunt several miles back in blocks of rough, steep heavily timbered public ground that run into hundreds of thousands of acres. I gutless quarter and debone in the field and sack 'em up in game bags, strap on a frame pack and hike the meat out to a cooler in the bed of the truck. The meat gets iced down and later pulled out and I cut my steaks, backstraps, roast and for ground meat, sausage ect. It then gets vacuum packing for the freezer. I like knives and I like to use my gear. Knives from Ingram, Dowell, Menefee and Dozier have gotten the bulk of the work for the last decade. I have knives for the deboning and quartering in the field and others for the actual butchering and processing at home.

I guess I'm just a knife slut.



I don't skin all that many deer these days.

But I do skin a hog now and then.

Where to start?



Dale Howe "Buffalo Skinner, 3V steel, rams horn scales.

Lotsa belly, and a good rough surface on the horn. But then I don't push much with a skinner. Mainly pull.




this skinner from Dale Atkerson, "Slaughterville Knives" with D2 steel and micarta scales is amazing in the hand. Prolly as sweet as any I own.




A drop point hunter by Mike Williams, leaf pattern damascus and amber dyed stag will do the job with aplomb!




a magical semi-skinner in A2 by Ricky Bob Menefee. I've skinned near a dozen hoglets and haven't had to touch the blade up yet!




Todd Theyn makes an awesome Nessmuk inspired skinner from L6 steel. Buffalo horn scales. A bigger knife that I normally use, but it will cut a hogs head clean off.



Got a half dozen Doziers in D2. The do the job nicely!

and last but not least, a special set from Gene Ingram. Nessmuk, A2, desert Ironwood scales......





I've become inordinately fond of the way this bigger knife works!


ya!


GWB

I don't really have a favorite. Don't really have that many knives though.

I love the little Moki Banff. It is a bit small though. Another favorite is a Howe I gave my nephew.

I like VG-10 and cm154 over sv30.

The softer carbon kitchen knives are great simply because they are so easy to maintain an edge on. Cut a ton of fish with a Dexter Russel Sani butcher knife. Far prefer it to a fillet knife for salmon. The little Victorinox paring knives are great.

Lots of great blades out there.

My deer knife has changed a bunch since moving from Idaho to South Dakota. Nearly all my Idaho deer, and elk, where boned out since they were backpacked out. Dragging wasn't an option and I only ever quartered one of my 14 elk and lord only knows how many others I helped cut up and carried out. My Ingram #7 has seen the most duty but then my Tim Olt blade been worked hard; early on always found me with a Kershaw Elk Spring which is on it's third blade. When hunting miles back in I carried an ultra light, sub 3 ounce, D2 blade Tim Olt provided. It doesn't take that much longer to bone out a deer with a 2 5/8 blade and cutting ounces increased my time a field.

In South Dakota we get to shoot numerous deer per year and just about anywhere is close to a road and relative, to Idaho, flat. I've since stepped up to a 5" fixed blade and cut all the way through the sternum to grab the larynx. This is faster, safer, and easier than reaching in. My big blade, an inexpensive Polish made D2, makes splitting the pelvis simple. I don't bother to butcher my own deer, I take them to a shop down the road that does a better job than me. Never enjoyed cutting up game - now if I can only find someone to clean my fish.

I've never carried a sheath knife on my belt after learning they always bang against my rifle. I never hunt without a backpack and have numerous packs for various hunts, hunting knife is in the pack and a folder in my pocket.

O hell GWB I don't know if it would be more fun to visit you in Texas killing pigs or handling all those gorgeous knives. Will say you have great taste in blades.

Not an experienced hunter, but my favorite general purpose blade would be the Shanghai warrior by cold steel. The SK-5 steel blade is very corrosion resistant and can take tons of abuse without becoming dull, and it's wide and over 9" long so if you stab a game animal and twist it will create a massive wound channel, suitable for bringing down boars and in case you get attacked by a large predator. Planning on using it if I go hog hunting with dogs.

Seems a bit broad from a pig sticker, but I guess it would work.

I must say I used an outdoor edge change a blade knife on a pig this past winter. I think the blades are thicker than the havalon blades that folks say with break and get lost in the meat. Makes going through dirty hog hide easy. Peeled it out and then. CHanged the blade for deboning.

The newest knives are $20 for the folding handle.

I'm not real picky. I usually use 2 knives, an inside knife and an outside knife. The outside knife gets used for throat cutting and belly opening. The small knife gets used for skinning and cutting loose the anus, then going inside to finish that and cut around the diaphragm. After that, because cutting the throat has let the very front end loose already, I just reach up into the heart / lung area, grab around the wind pipe, and tear everything back, down, and out. It's slow, a bit of strain, but it comes loose. After the wind pipe comes loose and slaps me across the face I tip the belly down, pour any blood out of the cavity, and let it drain while I cut loose heart and liver from the guts. (Those are for my father, I don't eat them myself anymore. I used to like liver but it's become an un-acquired taste.) Little knife gets put away. Big knife gets used for skinning, then cutting the lower legs loose from the upper, and quartering if necessary.

My little knife, for the past couple decades, has been a medium Gerber LST. Anything with a sharp 1.5 to 2.25 inch blade is fine. Bigger is ok but the odds go up of cutting guts as you work on the diaphragm.

My bigger knife varies. I've used a Buck General ... great knife but the longer the blade, the stronger your wrists have to be to manage it with finesse. I've used a Gerber first generation LMF quite a bit. Today my two favorites are a Gerber magnum LST which I like if I want to save weight or have a folding knife, and Buck Vanguard with the rubber handle if I want a fixed blade.

I have other knives, large and small, but mostly they stay in a "tool" sack in the truck in case I need a spare, these are the ones that go to the woods.

The funniest "knife" I've seen was one my father made on-site. He screwed up and somehow left his knives home so after he shot his buck, he beat the empty cartridge flat with a couple rocks, somehow managed to tear a jagged sharp spot on it, and managed to use that to gut the deer.

Tom

geedubya
I love the look of the resin filled canvas on that one knife.
Elegant!

Sweet Jesus.




Dave

Well...uh... yeah.

A Buck 110, and a Havalon Torch have worked well for me.The Torch uses the slightly thicker 60a blades that are less prone to breaking. I keep a cheap pair of forceps with it to change the blades. Even the "dull' blades will slit you badly if you're not careful

Prefer a fixed blade, keep one in my pack (and one in truck). No belt carry.
4 and 5 inch blades.
The short one usually does the field dressing.

Maybe he is envisioning leaping upon a deer and tearing it to pieces in a flurry of adrenaline fuelled activity?

Hard to beat a 3.5" to 4" drop point for everything till on the butcher block.

Does the opening, splitting, slitting, severing, coring, skinning and quartering.
Tim

Three from Tim!


















the mud, the blood and the beer!







but knives as well as meat can be cleaned up!





and their is usually a new cold one in the cooler!


ya!


GWB

That buffalo handled blade is particularly interesting.

A lot of knives I use don't get much airplay, but that is lemon juice etched 5100 steel with guard.



BTW, it is sharp!




another boar, another set of cajones!




chores done!





ya!


GWB

Good looking stuff there, knives, beer and food...

I'm leaning toward carrying the M-48 Cyclone this year. A tang mounted bearing would make it perfect. The dozen or so occasions where I've arrived at my stand realizing I'd forgotten my rifle motivates a change in gear selection strategy. Having a mere six weeks to develop my palms before the season isn't ideal, but I'm gonna give it my all. According to the internet, blood and urine make the best callouses.

geedubya how do you get rid of the boar hog stink to eat them? the ones in ne fla smell so bad cyote & buzzards dont eat them

Please God let that be a joke.




Clark

My favorite right now.

Menefee Bigger Better Boner:

I think what sold me was, "The wound is totally same like from the crossbow hunting tip." That and I won a free one. The long range throwing demo at the end was also pretty hard to ignore.

This is what happens when knife makers approach middle age.

they seem to be like that in Georgia too. Where I hunt them in middle GA, we just discard the boars, and process and eat only the smaller females.

This thread certainly is... interesting!

Gdub, you ever kill any deer?

On occasion!



Me and a bud with two hill country 1 1 pointers!


ya!


GWB

PS: I'm the short fat bald guy!

If I walk up towards a boar that I've downed and I can smell him 15 paces away, no I don't bother with the meat. However boars 200 lbs and under don't seem to be too much of a problem. I'd rather take a good sow. I shot/snared 21 hogs in April and May. Sometimes I just take the hinds and backstaps and don't bother opening them up. Especially when its way hot out.

Snared this guy last time at my lease. Took the head for the tushes and the backstraps/loins and the hinds. Ate just fine.




Got this guy in April. No problem with the meat!





Took this sow in may. She was prime.





I prefer sows and boars under say 120 lbs for table fare, but the Abuelas at my trailer parks make some mighty tasty tamales out of boars or sows.

ya!

GWB

we do to.mannilicher it is a shame . we are over run sometimes with then . took some to a big cat safe house. tigers lions an other big cats. all of them cats and . bobcat kitten i grabbed in my yard .starved down an took it to them . will not eat boars but will eat store bought raw pork. they feed raw so bones will diejeast cooked bones will not

Anywho,

From time to time I shoot deer. Betwen 2003 and 2009 I let my oldest son take my good bucks. My passion is perforating and snaring hoglets. It is legal to do that 24/7/365 by any legal means. Rick Menefee who is a government animal control agent sez he thinks big old boars are a ton smarter than old bucks.

I did get on a south Texas low fenced lease this year. May end up shooting a buck if he excites me!


ya!


GWB

There ya go! Nice bucks...

I don't hunt high fence. I hunt "working-man" low fence hill country ranches. I turned down three chances to go to my sons high fenced lease he had last year.

Here is the buck his 20 year old step son took about 30 minutes after corning a sendero. First buck. Better than anything I've taken in my life. But to me that's not hunting. I earn my bucks!



I gave him the Todd Theyn knife a couple days earlier as his Christmas present. They skinned six deer with that knife.

ya!


GWB

Most assuredly it was, and the bit about the calluses was a nice touch, particularly if some goose falls for it.

Here the trick is to not eat the dry-land pigs, eat only those on crop or irrigation.

That's how I feel. You could take a 1/2" off that though

No.

I'm envisioning the dog(s) grabbing the hog by the face, and then I finish it with the knife.

"Favorite job-specific deer knives ???"


Big deal dick, that is a local pastime for everything from children to pensioners, nothing special and not interesting.

Guess I should have paid more attention to the thread title!

Apologies to the OP

my bad.


Carry on gents,I'm out!

Dang, that is a good looking plate of vittles, and I'd be more than willing to try that beer too!

Didn't think he was sniping at you GW.
(I never mind looking at your vast collection.)

Correct.