1AbominAble1
Gold Member
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2010
- Messages
- 2,423
I guess I should start by saying that I’ve been hunting for 35 years in all sorts of places and conditions.
Currently I don’t really need to do any camp cooking due to an Uncle letting me hunt his land that is only an hour away, and my very best friend ( blackend, here at the forum ) who lets me hunt his large piece of land that has accommodations that make it much more of a vacation than a hunting camp. We do far more beer drinking and burger eating there than hunting as I generally take my game at my Uncles place.
That said, after hunting in the mountains down south for over a decade where We slept in buildings with holes in the roof big enough that you could see the stars at night, often with no heat, and the ever present possibility that we’d get snowed in and not be able to get off of the mountain, I’ve grown used to taking as little as possible while still taking way more than I wanted to. Thank God for ATV’s as I couldn’t have carried it all on my back.
In that state of mind you do everything you can to take items that can be used in multiple ways to reduce the load, which sadly means less knives than I’d like to take.
Hard for us enthusiasts but necessary.
I’ve found a 3-4 inch knife is able to do pretty much all I need in the camp kitchen and in field dressing game- but- I do like to have a larger knife along to do a little chopping if needed, and it always seems to be needed. I’ve used a small hatchet, tomahawk, or golok type knife with great success but I think I can leave that at home and use the HDFK for everything.
Today I chopped a pretty good amount of silver maple up from some trimming we’d recently done in the yard, some limbs were about 4-5 inches across with most being 1-2 inches. It was a fun bit of chopping and my first real test of the edge durability of the HDFK. It started shaving sharp and ended just shy of shaving sharp while still plenty scary. I chopped through a ton of knots to accelerate any wear, I don’t think the knife got the memo, it just chopped through whatever I hit, I couldn’t have been more impressed with it. It honestly worked better than most hatchets I’ve used.
Here’s a few pics after chopping.
Can you find the HDFK in each pic
https://i.imgur.com/aMVCEnI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/da0axx9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/acWfif0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XT9JNyG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hP3jj1b.jpg
After that I wanted to see how it’d do in the kitchen. I was hopeful that it’d do well with their grind even though it’s a pretty thick knife for food prep. I’ve been less than impressed with many other knives of similar thickness, the HDFK didn’t disappoint.
I thinly sliced onions and quick chopped finding the knife to rock well on the curve of the point.
https://i.imgur.com/Gb1dGEg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/vHhfrt1.jpg
After that I diced up a bit of ham.
https://i.imgur.com/meDP3p3.jpg
I put some bacon grease into a pan and added the onions.
https://i.imgur.com/cnDeNx4.jpg
With a little salt and pepper it was time for the ham.
https://i.imgur.com/bXfna9P.jpg
Not too long after that I added 3 eggs.
https://i.imgur.com/nGCbsDC.jpg
It’s starting to look good.
https://i.imgur.com/SOlAD6O.jpg
Time for the rice and soy sauce.
https://i.imgur.com/QXFHoqy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iqXK2zn.jpg
While that was cooking I used the HDFK to cup up some cucumbers for the kids. All 3 of them wanted them cut differently. My oldest just wanted slices, middle wanted peeled slices, and the little princess wanted peeled slices with no seeds- plenty of fun with the HDFK and it did well just peeling the skin from the cuc’s. I couldn’t believe that it was able to trim, cut, and slice so well after smashing through all that wood and with having such fat blade stock.
I also made some little crustless tea sandwiches for the princess because she doesn’t like anything but salami, the knife obviously handled it well.
So, here’s the end results.
https://i.imgur.com/X8MV5sW.jpg
The CPK impressed me from beginning to end, the only way it would’ve been more enjoyable would have been if I had used that wood for a fire and cooked in a cast iron skillet.
I think I have a one knife solution to anything I could do in the woods or at camp on a normal trip, did you catch that caveat
I probably need to get a chopper too, because, well, just because I want it.
If you read all of this, thank you.
And if you’re shopping CPK Knives I’ll say that I’ve only owned mine a few days but it’s absolutely worth every penny.
Currently I don’t really need to do any camp cooking due to an Uncle letting me hunt his land that is only an hour away, and my very best friend ( blackend, here at the forum ) who lets me hunt his large piece of land that has accommodations that make it much more of a vacation than a hunting camp. We do far more beer drinking and burger eating there than hunting as I generally take my game at my Uncles place.
That said, after hunting in the mountains down south for over a decade where We slept in buildings with holes in the roof big enough that you could see the stars at night, often with no heat, and the ever present possibility that we’d get snowed in and not be able to get off of the mountain, I’ve grown used to taking as little as possible while still taking way more than I wanted to. Thank God for ATV’s as I couldn’t have carried it all on my back.
In that state of mind you do everything you can to take items that can be used in multiple ways to reduce the load, which sadly means less knives than I’d like to take.
Hard for us enthusiasts but necessary.
I’ve found a 3-4 inch knife is able to do pretty much all I need in the camp kitchen and in field dressing game- but- I do like to have a larger knife along to do a little chopping if needed, and it always seems to be needed. I’ve used a small hatchet, tomahawk, or golok type knife with great success but I think I can leave that at home and use the HDFK for everything.
Today I chopped a pretty good amount of silver maple up from some trimming we’d recently done in the yard, some limbs were about 4-5 inches across with most being 1-2 inches. It was a fun bit of chopping and my first real test of the edge durability of the HDFK. It started shaving sharp and ended just shy of shaving sharp while still plenty scary. I chopped through a ton of knots to accelerate any wear, I don’t think the knife got the memo, it just chopped through whatever I hit, I couldn’t have been more impressed with it. It honestly worked better than most hatchets I’ve used.
Here’s a few pics after chopping.
Can you find the HDFK in each pic
https://i.imgur.com/aMVCEnI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/da0axx9.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/acWfif0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XT9JNyG.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hP3jj1b.jpg
After that I wanted to see how it’d do in the kitchen. I was hopeful that it’d do well with their grind even though it’s a pretty thick knife for food prep. I’ve been less than impressed with many other knives of similar thickness, the HDFK didn’t disappoint.
I thinly sliced onions and quick chopped finding the knife to rock well on the curve of the point.
https://i.imgur.com/Gb1dGEg.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/vHhfrt1.jpg
After that I diced up a bit of ham.
https://i.imgur.com/meDP3p3.jpg
I put some bacon grease into a pan and added the onions.
https://i.imgur.com/cnDeNx4.jpg
With a little salt and pepper it was time for the ham.
https://i.imgur.com/bXfna9P.jpg
Not too long after that I added 3 eggs.
https://i.imgur.com/nGCbsDC.jpg
It’s starting to look good.
https://i.imgur.com/SOlAD6O.jpg
Time for the rice and soy sauce.
https://i.imgur.com/QXFHoqy.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iqXK2zn.jpg
While that was cooking I used the HDFK to cup up some cucumbers for the kids. All 3 of them wanted them cut differently. My oldest just wanted slices, middle wanted peeled slices, and the little princess wanted peeled slices with no seeds- plenty of fun with the HDFK and it did well just peeling the skin from the cuc’s. I couldn’t believe that it was able to trim, cut, and slice so well after smashing through all that wood and with having such fat blade stock.
I also made some little crustless tea sandwiches for the princess because she doesn’t like anything but salami, the knife obviously handled it well.
So, here’s the end results.
https://i.imgur.com/X8MV5sW.jpg
The CPK impressed me from beginning to end, the only way it would’ve been more enjoyable would have been if I had used that wood for a fire and cooked in a cast iron skillet.
I think I have a one knife solution to anything I could do in the woods or at camp on a normal trip, did you catch that caveat
I probably need to get a chopper too, because, well, just because I want it.
If you read all of this, thank you.
And if you’re shopping CPK Knives I’ll say that I’ve only owned mine a few days but it’s absolutely worth every penny.
Last edited:
