hunters

H

hunterdrake

Joined
Feb 8, 2002
Messages
45
Do many people collect hunters? I have all of the Arkansas' Mastersmiths except Ron Newton and his is coming at the spring hammer-in in May. All of my knives are hunters (my Fisk is a skinner), some damascus, some carbon. I like to carry different ones on different hunting trips. I bet that the next one I will need to get is a Fitch.
 
Wow, all the Arkansas Masters? Very nice theme for your collection. What state is next? Nirvana?

I also collect hunters but the makers come from all over the place. The strange thing is that I do not hunt. I do carry and use a couple of different Jim Crowell knives when hiking/camping/fishing. I like to collect hunters because I think you get the most bang for your buck (mommy, please make the bad man stop making puns), they are simple, useful, artful, and probably the most basic utilitarian knife design around (including Puukkos of course)

Para :)
 
I love hunters because I think they are the most utilitarian of all the knives. I always have a small hunter on my belt. I do not really collect them, but I sure do like having one with me at all times.
 
A good hunter gets me all the time. I have gone to shows looking for one thing, and ended up with a hunter. I do not know what it is about them.

Rich
 
I too love custom hunters. It is the design that got me into custom knives from the beginning. At first I focused strictly on Loveless-style drop point designs, but have now opened up to semi-skinners and clip points as well. Early on I was after ones strictly with micarta scales for durability, but I then realized that I baby them so much (even in the field) that getting a pretty stabilized wood wouldn't be too risky.
I feel the fixed-blade hunter (as stated above) is the most useful and economical custom style currently available, and it gives me a lot of satisfaction to carry and use them while hunting.
I'm currently setting my sights on a Fowler. :cool:
-Paul
 
And there is such a variety of options here. All of my "true customs" some of my "small shop" knives are hunters or more specialized skinners, though I am curious about what makes a knife a "skinner" in your opinion...

I agree concerning their utility. My Dozier K1 is billed as a "utility knife", yet it is a perfect small game hunter/skinner, while his Slim Outdoorsman or Straight Hunter are both good small/medium game hunters and utility knives! Several of my real customs have upswept tips which to me turns the hunter into a more specialized skinner. These seem to loose something of utility value because you loose some point control, but on the other hand, they make even better scrapers, and mini-machetes (cutting grass around water spigots for example) thanks to their upsweep.

What differentiates a hunter from a utility knife anyway? The only things I can think of are that:

1. Sometimes a hunter can be wider than you would want in a utility knife. I have one like this. A dropped point hunter/skinner with a 1.75" wide, 2.5" long blade from Barry Posner. Its a good knife, but excessivly wide for most utility work.

2. Sometimes you might want a hunter to be a little thinner (stock thickness) than a utility knife because thinner generally cuts better and is easier to sharpen, and you don't expect to have to cut wire or the like as you might with a utility knife. Of course this applies more to smaller game since you may well have to pry here and there with larger game.

Does this make sense? I'm just wondering if utility and hunting are so closely related that there really is little distinction to be made between the knives best suited to each task...
 
Matthew touches on one of the most enjoyable aspects of collecting 'hunters'. Since almost every maker, every collector, every user (hunter or no) has his own idea of what an ideal small fized blade should be like, there is almost endless variety of designs that fit the 'hunter' category.

I usually think of a knife with a 2.5 to 5 inch fixed blade and a guard as a hunter. But I have several puuko inspired knives without guards that I also consider part of my hunter collection. All of my custom fixed blades are hunters. Even my three custom folders fit that description as well.

A Hunter is usually similar or synonymous with Utility knife. Variations in blade length, blade grind, belly, and the point position (drop, straight, or upswept) usually influence when a knife is called a skinner, hunter, bird and trout, or utility knife. Every maker that I know of produces small fixed blade hunters. They are all quite different. But they are all the same thing to me.

On a hunter you can usually you can expect a guard, but not always. And the absence of a guard does not make a knife a Puukko. But I think a Puukko can certainly be called a 'hunter'. You can no more exactly define the term 'hunter' than you can Fighter, or Bowie, Art Knife, or Custom. The beauty is in the eye of the beholder and what word he uses to describe a small fixed blade is a personal choice. But I think most of us know what is meant when someone calls a knife a hunter.

Para
 
I like hunters, even the unusual ones. An odd hunter that has worked well for me is a "Beavertail" design. It is sharpened on both sides and on the rounded tip. Excellent for skinning. Knives of Alaska introduced a production version of a Beavertail (they call it the Muskrat). Only part of the second edge is sharpened but it works well. That design may even be preferable because you can rest a fingertip on the unsharpened portion of the back of the blade.
 
Some great comments in this thread. I also have quite a few "custom" hunters in my collection. Most of them have been used for the task they were designed. I enjoy the wide variety of options available (blade length, steel, grind, belly, drop point, clip, upswept)and believe these options make "hunters" the ultimate utility knife.

I also have a few bird and trout style knives that are excellent when you don't need a bigger knife. I hope to pick up another bird & trout at the Blade show.

It's nice to see each maker's idea of what a small/med small fixed blade hunter should be. Most of these idea's are very different takes on the same theme.
 
I don't mean to be a traffic-thievin' bastid, but if you like hunters you should check out the knife forum at www.huntamerica.com . GC (also a long-time member here) and I try to keep it rolling but we can always use more help. (And in case anyone is worried, we send WAY more people from Huntamerica to Bladeforums than the other direction. We have developed a lot of dual members.)
 
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