Could you field dress an elk with a stockman?

blades&grace said:
If I had to I could. Necessity is the mother of invention.
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What he said. Could probably use a sharp rock if i had too. I just don't carry slipjoints much. Will probably use my DPX Hest to skin and process deer this year i think. Or whatever i happen to be carrying.
 
Given enough time you could probably field dress an elephant with a stockman.:eek:--KV
 
Agree with the others I could get it done. For several reasons including grip and cleanup prefer a fixed blade by far. I know things happen but normally if I have made my plans well enough to get out in the woods, find an elk and shoot him I should have planned well enough to slip a knife on my belt.
 
Not a problem for me. A saw comes in handy though
 
blades&grace said:
If I had to I could. Necessity is the mother of invention.
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Same thing here. It would be a real chore. There are some who routinely skin deer with a trapper. I once saw a demonstration, just outside Staunton, VA, where a guy skinned a deer with a pull-tab from an aluminum beer can. Took some effort but he got it done. In the past, I've used a stockman or trapper to skin squirrels and rabbits.
 
Sure. On whitetail, all my brother in law and father in law ever use is a case trapper(and a saw), (they are both experienced hunters/father in law has hunted 60 years and probably limits out most years). All I ever use is an old bucklite and a saw. With the trapper, they use the clip to gut and the spey to skin. On a stockman, you have a whole extra blade.
 
Cool video. I have never taken an animal as large as an elk, so that was interesting to see. Not much different than a deer or small game, except that the margin of error with small game is a lot less. I ruined more than one squirrel and rabbit meal by getting the blade into someplace it should not have been when I was learning. I tend to use the clip blade to start to skin and the spey blade for the rest based on those mistakes. Once I was decent on the small game, graduating to the larger animals was not too bad.
 
I grew up in Southwestern Colorado and have several family members that guide or have guided for elk, a couple of them prefer large slip joints for the task. That being said I have been a part of two hunts that the elk was filed dressed and boned out with medium size slip joints. Also a fellow my father worked with field dressed a cow elk with a Bear Razor head broad head after realizing he lost his Western fixed blade.
As stated necessity will determine, to a degree, what can and will be done at times.

Chris
 
Chris,

Here is a photo of my long time hunting buddy showing his son and another friend how to field dress a cow elk. The two were first timers, so he got out his traditional stockman a Buck 303, which I had given him, and started field class. You can just see it in his left hand. Luckily this was on the very edge of a grassland park on private land. We stretched a long rope to the empty cow and pulled her to the open and all four of us lifted her into back of a truck. Back at camp straight knives and a saw or two came into play to de-bone for ice chests. I have been in on several deer kills and a half dozen elk kills, I usually used a locking blade folder, in my case a Buck 112, on two or more occasions used a larger SAK, with its saw and a reverse curved serrated blade I had smoothed down to "unzip" the belly skin without cutting organs. So the short answer is yes you can, but one with some special traits makes the job easier. 300Bucks



Here is my SAK, special hunting version.....throw in a light weight folding saw and a small sharpening stone and your set. Survivor man would be jealous.

 
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300Bucks said:
Chris,

Here is a photo of my long time hunting buddy showing his son and another friend how to field dress a cow elk. The two were first timers, so he got out his traditional stockman a Buck 303, which I had given him, and started field class. You can just see it in his left hand. Luckily this was on the very edge of a grassland park on private land. We stretched a long rope to the empty cow and pulled her to the open and all four of us lifted her into back of a truck. Back at camp straight knives and a saw or two came into play to de-bone for ice chests. I have been in on several deer kills and a half dozen elk kills, I usually used a locking blade folder, in my case a Buck 112, on two or more occasions used a larger SAK, with its saw and a reverse curved serrated blade I had smoothed down to "unzip" the belly skin without cutting organs. So

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I really like both pics, but this one is a great example of the gear and the end result. Thanks for sharing.

Chris
 
I'm a professional hunting guide, I field dress between 20 and 30 animals a year including 3-4 bull elk and skin a lot more than that. Being a knife snob I usually use one of my custom fixed blades but I usually do a few with my folders every year for nostalgia. An Eye brand single blade trapper, a Case damascus muskrat, a GEC 73 and now a newly added USA Old timer single blade liner lock trapper. I definitely prefer a liner lock slip joint for safety but I dont feel undergunned with any carbon bladed trapper size knife. In fact most of my fixed blades have shorter blades than a 4 1/8" trapper. A lot of Old timers and even some younger guides only carry trappers and Stockmans. One of my best friends guides brown bear in AK and has skinned a bunch of brown bear with a Moore maker single blade liner lock trapper!
Funny thing is I never use a saw when I disassemble a critter in the field. In the skinning barn I will use one because it's handy but never in the field.
 
I'd rather use a trapper, but a stockman works fine too. A saw or hatchet helps if you have to quarter it to pack out, but isn't really needed to field-dress.
 
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