Before you settle on one of the new SOG knives for hunting, there are a few things you should Consider. What animals will you hunt? How will you dress and butcher the animal? Do you plan to have a mount made? How do you need to carry the knife and is size or weight a factor? All of these things may not seem important at first impression, but get into the elk woods with a knife poorly suited to skinning, caping or deboning and they suddenly become obvious. There are , however , knives in particular designed for small game. Big game like deer, elk, bear, moose and caribou are just that ... Large game. That pocket knife you use on rabbits or quail might get the task finished on a bear, but it doesn't go to be easy or agreeable. We'll stick with big game. After the kill, your initial consideration will likely be field dressing or gutting. Any experienced hunter knows that, right? But is there a selected type knife that's better at gutting than some other? Can't you tummy a deer or an elk with the same knife you'll use to skin it? Sure you can, but ... Consider that a dedicated gut hook, or a knife with an in-built tummy hook, will do a neater, cleaner job of field dressing than a skinning knife will, just as a skinning knife will skin that elk simpler and more efficiently than a deboning knife ever could. And speaking of deboning ... And what if that elk you simply shot is your'Trophy of a Lifetime'? You want a mount, don't you? At least a full head or a shoulder mount, huh? That suggests someone will have to cape that elk correctly so your taxidermist will have something to work with besides a ragged hide full of nicks and holes. A caping knife is in order. The point here is that there are different type knives for different jobs. Now let's compare the types mentioned so far Dedicated stomach hooks This knife ( for our purposes we'll call it a knife ) truly has only one intended purpose ... To cut open the belly, or paunch, WITHOUT cutting into the guts and making a massive, stinky, contaminating mess. Knives with built-in tummy hooks This is a regular knife, just about any style blade, but with the tum hook built right in. Double duty, two-in-one, if you will. ( we will chat about the different blade styles further down the page. ) Skinning knives Skinning knives typically have a rounded blade and aren't so pointed at the tip. The rounded cutting edge helps cutting the membrane that holds the skin to the animal. You use it in a sort or'swiping' or'rocking' motion, as opposed to'slicing'. As with any knife, there are diversifications and adaptations but a skinner nearly always has this rounded, blunt-tipped appearance. regularly regarded as a'butcher knife' or merely a'boning knife'. This kind knife is excellent for cutting beef from bone. Then again, a deboning knife could serve as a good general generally hunting knife.Caping involves fine, detailed skinning work around your prize's antlers, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. A good caping knife generally has a slim, thin ... But not too flexible ... Some caping knives have pointed blades, some rounded. This is more a matter of preference than anything. While the rounded versions help make certain you don't incidentally poke a hole where you do not need one, the pointed versions can reach into tighter places to make more delicate cuts. Just remember ... Control and delicacy. Any unwelcome hole will need to be patched by your taxidermist ( most likely at added cost to you ) and any'missing' hide is not simply or cheaply replaced. it is possible to cape out a nice prize with that general, all-around hunting knife, but keep in mind the old chestnut about the proper tool for the job. as far as hunting knives go, there are 3 basic blade styles drop point, clip point and skinning. The drop point is a brilliant blade design for gigantic game. The blade is usually heavier and thicker, making for a solid, robust knife capable of splitting the sternum and even the ribs of all but the largest, toughest big game animal. Clip point blades are rather thinner than drop points and the point is intensified. It's also a bit flatter from cutting edge to back and makes a superb all-purpose knife, hunting aside. Many skinning knives are very close in design to the drop point. However [*COMMA] the'typical','modern' skinners don't have the gentle curve related to the drop point. The skinner's curve is generally more drastic, starting more in the middle than at the handle, and the curve tends to have a bigger radius than that of the drop point. Some very old skinner designs, not too much in production as hunting knives nowadays, have an almost crescent shape and frequently much longer blades. Fixed or Folding? That announced, there are some with interchangeable blades, and even a few that have two blades, one projecting from each end of the handle ... One blade at a time, by'sliding' the handle forwards and backwards. For our purposes, these are still fixed blade knives. Fixed blades require a sheath to give protection to the cutting edge, and the hunter. The blades fold away into the handle when not in use, although not by themselves. Any folding knife used for huge game should have a mechanism that locks the blade open. Pivots eventually wear out and, occasionally, a locking mechanism fails. Not a big score and not all that tough to wash, just something to think about. summary there is a knife for every task you'll encounter in hunting. Each task begs the right knife. Does this mean you'll need to carry 3, four, 5 knives every time you set out from camp? Naturally not. With one well-designed, well-made knife, perhaps two, you can accomplish any of those jobs. The options are there, you know what they are. Now you simply make up your intelligence based totally on what you know and how much you can spend.
