what blade length is most comfortable for you for field dressing

D

dd61999

Joined
Sep 12, 2007
Messages
692
I am finding smaller knives (2-3") are more enjoyable to work with for field dressing.

What knives do you guys like to work with?
 
I like my 4" fillet knife most, but I'm a primary wingshooter. For fur, I still like around 4", but a slightly thick blade than a fillet knife.
 
For many years, I've used either a four inch fixed blade (modified drop point) that I had a custom bladesmith make (forged) to my specs, in 1983, or, a Buck 110 folder (1970 mfg.). I've always augmented these with my ancient Camillus Stockman. These have worked perfectly for my needs on elk, deer, antelope, and Black bear.

L.W.
 
From experience so far, I like a blade length no greater than 3-5 Inches.

That usually has me well covered for Fish/Deer etc.

sp
 
I have only ever got dressed once in a field, it was cold, muddy and all the other campers stared at me, if it wasn't for my son throwing up in the tent I would never have done it..........I didn't need a knife, my clothes all fitted !!!:D:thumbup:
 
Like someone said above, I really like my KoA cub-bear caping knife. 3" blade, slim and pointy. I've been looking for a reason to use my Busse gamewarden, but when I finally had one, the knife was left at home for fear of baggage handler theft. I think that anything over 4" starts to get counter productive for field dressing game. Also, a wide blade tends to be less useful than a slim blade in my experience.
 
I have dressed more than a few whitetail deer with a Cold Steel Bird & Trout. No job in dressing them that can't be done with a sharp 3" blade depending on the users technique.
Pit, the cold was not just an excuse, eh?? LOL!
2Door
 
It doesn't take much to dress out a deer but with a 4" you can comfortably do the whole thing - dress out, skin and completely butcher.
 
3" To 5" Knife will field dress mice to moose for me, also good size for general utility. when it comes time to butcher larger cuts of meat i like a long 7 to 10" green river type butcher knife. for field dressing i've used both fixed and folder depending what i was carrying at the time both work well as long as they are sharp.
 
A good 4" for me, fish obviously are diffrent, but rabbits and up, 4" does it. I.E. Master Hunter.
 
I love the Bucklite folders. I have five of them. Its kind of a pain to clean them out inside after field dressin big game but if you have time to soak it over night it ain't bad. I thought the Bucklite was discontinued but I found a new one the other day and grabbed it fast. I lost the pocket clip off of one of them.
 
3-5" works best for me, but I am starting to really like my spyderco native which has a 2 15/16" cutting edge. Almost all of my knives are under 4", I included the 4-5" range because my benchmade rukus is 4.25" so any knife slightly longer than that seems okay with me.
 
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