Warning............ I have included pictures of processed animals. All I have to learn from is my own experience and that passed to me, or inferred, from other folks. I have a video somewhere that my wife did of me filleting a small Walleye, with an aus8 Recon Tanto. And it did a darn good job even with the factory edge. I'm a run what ya brung kind of person. Sometimes I just have a folder on me and take the guts out until home to better process...........But my research and relics finds from fur trade sites lead me to believe that three primary iron tools where almost always carried by fur traders around here. A folder for finer tasks like skinning etc., a medium/large fixed blade slicer for meat butchery, and a belt axe/hatchet/hawk, whatever you want to call it for heavier work, including smashing bones for marrow. The pictures I am including where finds from a 1780's fur trade general area. There where rings and all the usual trade trinkets. The folder as you can see was a pretty decent sized slip joint, and the belt axe was a medium size, as far as axe heads go. The iron fixed blade was traded at this particular site, and the French had slightly longer/thinner fixed blades as commonly traded. I was on a mixed trade site so the origin is dubious. It is none of my business what others do with their knives, and some folks use uncommon sense with them. In my view even a decent medium grade steel (compared to what's out now) like aus8 would have been a light saber compared to the basic iron tools that traders and trappers used, to open up North America. And these people used them for a living, often in isolation, in a very hostile environment. I have found snapped off chunks of those old folder blades. As for battoning, put it this way, the thicker the materials, the more my concern goes up about brutalizing a knife. And a hawk/hatchet is my preferred option. Hell, I can see the C.S. shovel as a good fire making tool in many ways, if it's the best option at hand. To each their own.
