Other uses for fishing knives?

S

stargawker

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Mar 1, 2014
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A client of mine gave me a couple of sockeye salmon as a thank you for some web site design work. A lovely gesture but I hadn't cleaned a fish in over 20 years! And never a salmon.

Went onto YouTube for a "how-to" clean a salmon video and grabbed the best knife I could think of to clean them. It was a poor quality boning knife from a kitchen set. I got the job done but it really showed me I need to improve my kitchen knives, not just my EDC and whittling knives.

I like to eat fish, but I don't go fishing so I didn't want to spend a lot of money on fishing knives, so I started watching at flea markets and thrift shops. Today I found 2 in a thrift shop for less than $4. Plus I had an antique one from a couple of months ago.

But I get fish so rarely I am wondering if there are any other things that fishing knives are good for cutting?

The smallest one (top) is a Rapala with a plastic handle - says it is made in Sweden. Looks like an 8" Hawk - cost 75 cents. Figured I couldn't go wrong with this one for that price. And it is small enough that it might work for some things in the kitchen.

The middle one is an antique French fishing knife from the 1920's or 1930's. I have no plans to use it as it is an antique, but the blade profile is such that it could be used for other things than just cleaning fish.

The third one is marked as a J. Marttiini Finland Fillet Knife. A larger knife that looks like it would work well for fishing. A good find for $3. But is it useful for anything other than cleaning fish?

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If the blade isn't too flexible, Fillets can make good boning knives.
I like my big Murphy fillet for butterflying a pork loin before it gets stuffed and smoked.
Use them, experiment.
The old French knife is pretty cool.
 
I use fillet knives often in the kitchen.
Peeling potatoes
Slicing mushrooms.
Trimming meat
Thinly cutting lettuce
Slicing tomatoes
...
 
I use them often on poultry, rabbits and small game as well as fish. The blade profile is also excellent for coring peppers and other produce tasks. I have several different sizes of those vintage J. Marttiini as that is what I used growing up. A fillet/boning knife is easily my second most used kitchen knife with a chef knife being first and I have many of the former of varying length and flexibility. My favorite is a Big Chris custom fillet in S90V.
 
I had a buddy who went out moose hunting one evening after work for a quick hunt. We he got a moose and wasn't prepared...only had a fillet knife in the truck and had to use it to gut the moose.
 
I use a 6" fillet knife to help skin deer and wild hogs, the flexibility of the blade helps a lot when working between the hide and the carcass, and using the fine point when removing the backstraps and tenderloins.
 
I did use the smaller one the other day to cut up some small vegetables and it worked just find now that I got it sharp enough. Have to try the larger one on something...until someone else gets me a fish. :)
 
The bottom one is a Rapala too. They sharpen easy and cut like a laser. Thinly slice roast, cheese, salami, etc. great for the kitchen. Use them all the time.
 
Tried the larger fishing knife yesterday on cutting ingredients for soup. It handled celery, onions, carrots and turkey just fine. So I guess I will use it as a kitchen knife as well.
 
I am finding the smaller fishing knife is fast becoming one of my favourite small knives for kitchen cutting. Stays very sharp and works excellent.
 
I've got an old Western States yellow folder that has a bottle opener on the scaling blade...very handy! :)
 
My Dad is not really a knife guy but a terrific whitetail hunter. I gave him a Gerber hunting knife in the 80s when they were the best production knives but his all time favorite hunting knife was a cheap fillet knife with about a 6 inch blade. He field dressed many big bucks with it. I think the reason he liked it was that with the thin blade it would still cut when it wasn't real sharp.
 
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