Havalon. Haven't found a thing they won't do yet. Somethings not quite so well like fleshing a hide down. Where we lean on Green River patterns instead. But moose, bison, brown bears and things smaller down to our small deer, Havalon and never look back.
We can keep Larry Root and all his idiotic blabber and user names on here, but we can't get Ralph back..... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over....
Elk knife from this morning. To be honest the Ingram did the skinning but a carbon mora did the breaking down.
The carbon Moras are hard to beat. Wildchild was having to much fun and stole that one.
Congrats.
Thanks bud! Got it done with the lever gun. Good thing about stolen Moras is they’re cheap to replace! I must be getting less knife snobby in my old age! Lol
"I used to be a tired hunting guide, now I'm just a re-tired hunting guide"
"No eternal reward will forgive us now, for wasting the dawn" JM
Ingram Lite-Hunter set stays in my pack for everything. Deer, elk, the one moose I got in AB. 3" Lite-Hunter and 3" Bullnose Skinner both in S30V in a dual sheath.
I can walk on water.......................but I do stagger a bit on alcohol.
Havalon. Haven't found a thing they won't do yet. Somethings not quite so well like fleshing a hide down. Where we lean on Green River patterns instead. But moose, bison, brown bears and things smaller down to our small deer, Havalon and never look back.
My last experience with a Havalon was 2018. I killed a nice bull elk, gutted it out with a blade I made and off to the barn to skin it. My buddy decided he wanted to help me. Bull hanging up….get to work. He decides to skin the opposite side of the bull from me using a new Havalon. I finish skinning my bull down to the neck on my side. He has to stop and change blades skinning out the ham. By the time he finished his side 30 minutes later, he had swapped out blades SIX times on his Havalon. My blade had gutted the elk and skinned out one side…..still shaved. He has bought probably twenty blades from me and I told him he was insulting me by using a Walmart blade. We laughed. He thought I wasn’t looking when I saw him toss it in the garbage can out of the corner of my eye.
You only live once, but...if you do it right, once is enough.
I’ve been using the outdoor edge switchable blade setups with great success- I think that’s what they are. Orange handle. Everyone likes what they like. I never pack out a cape, many times leave the racks behind too. If I can’t eat it, I don’t want to pack it. I should state that I typically hunt roadless, pack in areas. This October, we made a 6 mile loop to get the bull back to the truck in 2 trips, 5 bags. If you are just 300-1000 yards from the truck, that’s a totally different perspective. Either way the switch blade setup and a cable saw, make quick work for me
Please.let me know what knife(s) you use for field dressing elk. Pictures appreciated. I'm looking for one knife to carry and not interested in the replaceable blade category. Thanks all!
The top knife was my Dad's when I was a kid. He bought it in '65/'66. I learned field dressing on deer/elk/bear/antelope with that knife. Honestly don't know how many it was used on, or even how many I used it on. DO know I used it on my own first mule deer and elk, and a [bleep] ton more until I graduated high school.
At that point I was gifted a Randall Model 8. When visiting my girlfriend, now my wife, down in Boise my truck was broken into and that knife stolen. I've HATED fV(king Boise with an undying passion since.
Anyway, needing a knife to hunt, I bought the second knife in the picture. It is the last year Buck used their awesome "woodpecker lips hard" 440C. I used that thing for decades on several continents.
Fast forward. Around 12 years ago I asked Gene Ingram to make me a whammer set based on the old school number 7, with a Lite Hunter and a Semi Skinner in S35VN. He did, and that's been my home use knives in Idaho ever since.
I have LOTS of nostalgia for Dad's knife, and a real fondness for my classic 110, and a hollow sense of loss for my Randall...but, all that said...wouldn't go back from the Ingram's today, tomorrow, or Sunday. They are simply a cut (pun) above...
Last edited by Journeyman; 02/02/24.
You can no more tell someone how to do something you've never done, than you can come back from somewhere you've never been...