I've done a lot of writing and reading about the outdoors lately, but I haven't been in it enough. And Lizzy's life lacked excitement...
So we headed off for a walk. It involved a climb of maybe 1000 feet. Lizzy enjoyed herself....
Naturally I had a knife with me. It wasn't a tough decision to pick the Gameskeeper. I like to carry it horizontally across my front. I just thread the sheath on my belt as per normal, then I lift the sheath and slip the end of it into a loop of cord tied around my belt. The knife is then out of sight and I can access it with either hand. Lizzy didn't bail a hog, but if she did I would have been able to grab a hog leg with one hand and there would be a fair chance I'd have been able to draw the knife with the other. Normally the shirt would be hanging over the knife, but I lifted it for the photo.
I located two botanical items of interest on our walk. One was a tree we call 'horopito'. It has leaves with a hot taste and it is one of the few native trees I know of that is used for such a purpose. I took some leaves to dry at home. The other find was a patch of bracken fern. This is relatively common, but it isn't always simple to find some with stems that are long and thick enough to make arrows. This stuff really shrinks as it dries, so you have to cut really thick stalks. I have taken game using bracken arrow shafts.
The Gameskeeper has had very little bushcraft use. So I figured I should have a walking staff. I found a dead sapling that was still fairly sound. The Gameskeeper chopped through the hard wood with relative ease.
With the nicely shaped handle, and the lanyard hole, the Gameskeeper lends itself nicely to being tied onto a pole to make a spear. It isn't as long as a Cold Steel Bushman, and the method of securing it isn't as good as having a hollow handle, but it would serve as a spear if necessary. It would be a tad short and flimsy for a big hog or a bear, but it would serve well for the times when I have set 'live' snares, and the critter has climbed a tree higher than I can reach, or when it is holed up in thick scrub.
And with all the talk about batoning I've been involved with lately, I had to give it a try. I didn't have a big baton, so I whacked the spine of the knife with my walking staff. The blade split the dead pine branch with relative ease.
I tried levering the knife sideways. I didn't give it my maximum pull, but I pulled it until I saw it flex. And that was quite a pull. In normal use the knife would be extremely unlikely to suffer that much sideways stress.
I've used knives for decades, but I don't have a doctorate in knife terminology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Gameskeeper has a flat grind. In other words, the whole of the blade is one smooth continuous wedge from the spine to the cutting edge. To me this the most sensible grind for a hunting/bushcraft knife with a spine as thick as the Gameskeeper. It has the strength of the thick spine, but there is no 'shoulder' to impede any slicing or splitting that needs to be done. Other knife configurations will work of course, but I think this design is pretty darn efficient.
I'd been thinking that I'd like to own an American bowie style of knife for tough work, but I reckon this little Gameskeeper is plenty tough enough and a more practical size for what I do compared to a big bowie.
So we headed off for a walk. It involved a climb of maybe 1000 feet. Lizzy enjoyed herself....
Naturally I had a knife with me. It wasn't a tough decision to pick the Gameskeeper. I like to carry it horizontally across my front. I just thread the sheath on my belt as per normal, then I lift the sheath and slip the end of it into a loop of cord tied around my belt. The knife is then out of sight and I can access it with either hand. Lizzy didn't bail a hog, but if she did I would have been able to grab a hog leg with one hand and there would be a fair chance I'd have been able to draw the knife with the other. Normally the shirt would be hanging over the knife, but I lifted it for the photo.
I located two botanical items of interest on our walk. One was a tree we call 'horopito'. It has leaves with a hot taste and it is one of the few native trees I know of that is used for such a purpose. I took some leaves to dry at home. The other find was a patch of bracken fern. This is relatively common, but it isn't always simple to find some with stems that are long and thick enough to make arrows. This stuff really shrinks as it dries, so you have to cut really thick stalks. I have taken game using bracken arrow shafts.
The Gameskeeper has had very little bushcraft use. So I figured I should have a walking staff. I found a dead sapling that was still fairly sound. The Gameskeeper chopped through the hard wood with relative ease.
With the nicely shaped handle, and the lanyard hole, the Gameskeeper lends itself nicely to being tied onto a pole to make a spear. It isn't as long as a Cold Steel Bushman, and the method of securing it isn't as good as having a hollow handle, but it would serve as a spear if necessary. It would be a tad short and flimsy for a big hog or a bear, but it would serve well for the times when I have set 'live' snares, and the critter has climbed a tree higher than I can reach, or when it is holed up in thick scrub.
And with all the talk about batoning I've been involved with lately, I had to give it a try. I didn't have a big baton, so I whacked the spine of the knife with my walking staff. The blade split the dead pine branch with relative ease.
I tried levering the knife sideways. I didn't give it my maximum pull, but I pulled it until I saw it flex. And that was quite a pull. In normal use the knife would be extremely unlikely to suffer that much sideways stress.
I've used knives for decades, but I don't have a doctorate in knife terminology. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the Gameskeeper has a flat grind. In other words, the whole of the blade is one smooth continuous wedge from the spine to the cutting edge. To me this the most sensible grind for a hunting/bushcraft knife with a spine as thick as the Gameskeeper. It has the strength of the thick spine, but there is no 'shoulder' to impede any slicing or splitting that needs to be done. Other knife configurations will work of course, but I think this design is pretty darn efficient.
I'd been thinking that I'd like to own an American bowie style of knife for tough work, but I reckon this little Gameskeeper is plenty tough enough and a more practical size for what I do compared to a big bowie.
