Elk Cutlery What's in your pack?

[DBLGBL]

I see that a lot of guys are using the Havalon and Outdoor edges replacement blade knives. I'm old school and like the feel of a real blade in my hands. I confess to being a knife whore with some Loveless and Randalls living in my safe. I probably have a couple hundred knives and can't bear the thought of carrying a disposable blade knife. My elk pack contains just a small fixed blade Schrade that my grandfather gave me for my 16th birthday 35 years ago and a small steel. I have no trouble taking a elk apart and completely boning with just this one small blade. Most of the time I never even stop to steel it in the process. I have trouble understanding why the need for more than one knife or replacement blades. For you guys that have lost knives I keep a piece of orange surveyors ribbon tied through the lanyard hole on my knives. Love to have a elk track but am knife poor. What's in your pack?







2gbl

[Swede]

As I wrote in another thread, I am missing my favorite, but I still have a bunch of knives. Maybe my best is a standard old Buck. I have a folding Old Timer, and Western Boulder dad gave me as a kid. You see I don't lose them all. lol
I forget of them some I am sure, but I have a pink handled Havalon now too. I hope the pink handle will be easy to see, and no one else will want it.

[saddlesore]

Deleted, double post

[saddlesore]

I have four knives in my pack, one on my belt and a std Marine K bar survival knife in my saddlebag.
In my day pack.
I get my knives from a guy by the name of Jr Smith in SE Kansas.He is an old cattle rancher that makes knives as a hobby. I have 4 of his. They cost about $65 each,including scabbard. I have a 6" blade, a 4" blade ( on belt)and a short 3" blade skinning knife.
A Shakespeare fillet knife
A bigger buck skinning knife.
A Browning folding saw

Ooh!!! Band aides and Wound Seal to stop bleeding.

If you have been caught out and had to stay the night, the big K bar is priceless.Those little disposable blades are not going to help in shelter building. If you are packing horses or mules,you need to be able to apply some force if you to start cutting lash ropes etc if a wreck happens.

When I got a moose down this year,I needed all of them

[WapitiTalk1]

Gerber fixed blade and new for 2016, one of the new Outdoor Edge replacement blade thingamajigs. I'm not a big fan of the Havalon's so far as I can't keep a blade unbroken in them

[Indian Summer]

Interesting to see that some of the old schoolers are carrying multiple knives like I do. There was a day when I carried a single knife and by the time I was finished it was really dull and hard to do a good job with. Then I went through the stage of carrying a sharpener for that knife. Then I realized that there are times when you have that uneasy feeling because there is a lot of work to be done and very little light left and every minute counted. So I started carrying another knife. Then one day a buddy who outfits in Alaska showed up at the big Harrisburg outdoor show selling Pirantas. Being a guy who looks at knives like a woman might look at shoes I had to have one. It comes in really handy for certain things and it is soooo small and light that I just started including it in the daypack.

When I was a kid getting a folding Buck knife for Christmas was like when that little kid got the red Ryder BB gun on A Christmas story. All the old timers (30 to 50 years old ) had them so Buck became a household name. After learning the hard way what happens if you have a fair amount of pressure on a lock blade knife and you accidentally push the lock lever I quit using them and went to fixed blade knives. Along the way I became pretty good at sharpening and also learned that what made a Buck knife somewhat hard to sharpen was also what made it a good knife which is hard steel so I stuck with them.

One of the common mistakes a new or young elk hunter makes is assuming a bigger knife is better for bigger game. I hate a big knife. So currently I carry a Buck 105 Pathfinder with a 5 inch blade which is my main tool. Also the exact same knife in a smaller version which is the Buck 102 Woodsman with a 4 inch blade. Then the Havalon just for the heck of it.

I use a Wyoming saw to cut the legs off below the knee.

IMO the most over rated knives these day is Outdoor Edge. The caping knife is a joke. So thin you can fold the blade right over. I know nothing about their new products or the replacement blade model.

[Elkduds]

2 sharp folding/locking knives, quick sharpener, WY saw. Before I got the WY, I carried a keyhole saw w plastic pistol grip and 8" tapered blade. It was a better saw for deer than elk, but OK for sternum and pelvis b4 I went gutless

[husky390]

Raptor Razor and a Mora. Tried the Havalon, multiple knives, filet knives, etc and so far the RR and Mora combo work well for me.

[Lefty]

I keep a folding Schrade knife in my pack with tags wrapped around it.
I have two cheap Winchester and Browning(?) cheapo skinning/gutting knives in mt meat package and a fiskars folding saw in the ATV
I butchered my moose partly in the dark, My Schrade was still good to go, but the cheap Skinners didn't do well after hide, hair and bone.
I learned a simple trick from some other fellows cutting up their moose. A demo blade in a cordless reciprocating saw.
My little Milwaukee did great and didn't even use one battery

[Indian Summer]

Doing a job recently and a guy had a power tool that accepted multiple heads for different uses. One of them was a reciprocating saw head and with it attached it was WAY smaller and lighter than a regular sawzall. I'm going to look into that.

[GobbleFarmer]

When I hunt whitetails I usually gut them because I'll have to drag or carry the body up to a mile- usually less though, but I always have at least one knife with me, I lose knives all the time but somehow always find them eventually . I use whatever I got around to sharpening, this includes a $7 folding pocket knife from northern tool which has worked flawlessly on several occasions, crush series knives (one of them being my new favorite) and the list goes on... I'm sure I will get a quality knife by the time I get to hunt some wapiti.

[Lefty]

Joe not sure what tool you looking at , multi tool?. I tried a number of different cutting heads and didnt find any blades t o clear boner marrow hair and brain.
Anyway this little 12volt did fine

The fellows I watched butcher the moose with a larger Milwaukee , they pulled the hide off in less than 5 minutes, They were quick,The one fellow was a butcher he cut right through the backbone, he halved then quartered like cattle

[Ridge Ghost]

Just a Havalon for me, with several extra blades. This is lightweight and works well for me.

[Mallard1123]

I like using the cheap knives from costco. They come in a pack of 2 and there only $9.

[Osprey]

I've got a Browning foldable knife that my dad got me for deer hunting. I ended up skinning, caping the head, quatering my entire Elk this year with it and never sharpened the blade during the process, although I sharpened it razor sharp prior to trip. I will most likely invest in a light weight fixed blade in the near future for my big game expeditions. I prefer hard metals that take longer to sharpen but hold an edge for longer. I have a victorinox knife that I use for fileting Salmon that looks like a matchete and I probably sharpen it maybe once a year maybe twice and do a few hundred Salmon, Steelhead, and lake trout a year. They make smaller blades was thinking about getting one for cutting meat off bone on back pack trips they run about $20 for the smaller ones and are very light weight.

[Broken arrow]

I have a buck lite from a rmef banquet an outdoor edge flip n blaze and a rada sharpener. Lightest fastest and cheapest sharpener I know of.

[pointysticks]

If I have a lot of hiking, Mora Companion. Super light, very sharp.

My stepdad passed and I'm working his Buck110 into the rotation. Used my J-stone and put a micro bevel on the hollow grind and it is now frighteningly honed.

Here I feathered a post it note yesterday.



I do have one custom knife I also carry. Elk? That knife for sure. I want to justify the cost with an elk.

[pointysticks]

And I enjoy learning about knife sharpening too much to get a replacement blade type of knife. Plus if SHTF and I end up stranded in the woods, a real knife is the better survival tool. IMHO