Photos Bird and Trout! Let's See 'Em!

They look like very good in the hand knives to me Dave. A knife's appearance is important no question, but it must have the right feel, I think these have lashings of both:thumbsup:

Regards, Will
 
For the anglers here, I'm curious how you use a B&T on fish. In my early years I only caught panfish which I cleaned by gutting with any old knife, scaling with a scaling tool, then battering and panfrying whole. I still do that sometimes but more often filet the bigger fish I now go after with a proper filet knife.
 
Bugdoc, a B&T is used on fish the same way you used "any old knife" -

My method is dehead it, slit the belly, scrape the guts out, hold down the tail to scale it. Catfish, large pan fish and carp get skinned - thin slice around the tail, tail under a bear trap of a clip to hold the fish to a board, then peel the skin off.
 
Bugdoc said:
Are you scaling with the knife too?
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Yes, I use the spine of the blade as a scaler. if there isn't enough edge on the spine, I use the sharpened edge of blade held perpendicular to the scales (though I probably wouldn't have brought a knife without an edged spine). Nice knives, Tom.
- Stuart
 
Couple of new ones:

Camel bone.

YHbBRl1.jpg


Sheephorn with blue liners.

eKiAezs.jpg
 
Bugdoc said:
For the anglers here, I'm curious how you use a B&T on fish. In my early years I only caught panfish which I cleaned by gutting with any old knife, scaling with a scaling tool, then battering and panfrying whole. I still do that sometimes but more often filet the bigger fish I now go after with a proper filet knife.
Click to expand...

The type of fish has a lot to do with it. B&T knives are not great filet knives. And that is how I clean most fish. Particularly panfish like bluegills or crappie. But trout, are obviously right for a B&T knife. You can clean a trout every 20 seconds if you know how. Cut from the vent to the gills right up the belly. Cut in front of the gills across at the point where they join at the tongue. Grab the gills, and pull down. Gills and guts should come right out in one smooth pull.
 
Dave Horsewright Horsewright , you are knocking them outta the park!

Thanks for the tip Dan. Interesting approach with cutting in front of the gills. Do you find that a blade with a greater length to face ratio like Dave's is better/worse than stubbier blade profiles like the ones I posted for this type of work?
 
Bugdoc said:
Dave Horsewright Horsewright , you are knocking them outta the park!

Thanks for the tip Dan. Interesting approach with cutting in front of the gills. Do you find that a blade with a greater length to face ratio like Dave's is better/worse than stubbier blade profiles like the ones I posted for this type of work?
Click to expand...

Best answer I can give for that is actually from Dave Ferry Horsewright Horsewright about a couple of his customers. They bought the Damascus version of a knife Dave recently made for me, his Sonoran Belt Knife. They apparently are big time fly fishermen and refer to the knife as the "trout zipper". I have to agree with that assessment. Perfect to the task.

Cleaning trout this way is so easy, you can do it with any knife that has a point - for quick insertion in the vent, and then can fit in the gill flaps to cut at the tongue. Obviously a smaller narrower blade would work better, but if you tend to only catch monster trout you could do it with a bigger knife. I like Dave's blades for it, if only for the bonus style points, but a filet knife or a Buck 110 would do the job as well.

Something big like a chef's knife would be tougher to navigate when it came time to cut loose the gills. I would say the 2 knives you posted should work great, but the size of the knives isn't well displayed so if they are 9-10+ inches, you might find them a little unwieldy. You might need to contact Dave and have him make you a "trout zipper" of your own! Not the worse thing in the world! :D
 
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