Hope you get to christen that knife.
That would be major cool.
Yup. It is. 8)
8)
ya brian get one for me since im gonna miss deer season this year
Your wish is my command.
I had thought about taking some pictures of this Small Skinner slicing an onion or something; didn't get it done yesterday. Didn't try the knife on paper, cardboard, linoleum, roofing paper or shingles. Didn't do anything but give it a few passes on an old razor strop just for luck, brush on some Johnson's Wax, and wipe it off hard to leave just a very thin coat.
The result: the first thing that I ever cut with this knife was the nice, well-fed buck that I field dressed today.
Three of us got up at Oh-dark-hundred to get into place well before dawn. Temps in the twenties with very little wind. Started off overcast, had about an hour of very light snow and then the rest of the day was pretty. Up and down hillsides, up through thickets and down into ravines, all the while playing "how many kinds of seeds can stick to your clothing?" {Our answer was, "Lots."
}
I shot this one around lunch time; we spent the rest of the day looking for good shots on more. More thickets and steep little hillsides. Lots of brush and lots of directions and pathways for them to run; one deer was our total for today.
Nice buck, a fighter, apparently: four points on one side; the other antler had the main trunk broken off and a second, undamaged tine next to it. Both antlers had plenty of wear. This guy's had a good life. I haven't weighed him, but he's nice and heavy; probably weighs more than my 170 (or I just think so after having moved him around a bit).
As always, my main field dressing tools are my thumbs. Thumbs, assisted by fingers, separate tissue, then the knife makes cuts right where I want them. This knife is a dream. I was able to make the cuts I wanted by gently pushing the blade wherever I wanted a connection or piece of tissue to go away.
I started to get scared when I was working up inside the top (OK, anterior end) of the chest cavity, gathering and cutting the few things that need to be detached there. This is the definitive task that shows why I prefer a generous handle (long enough, but not fat) and a short blade. Working in the chest cavity is why I asked Valkman for his Small Skinner.
Anyway, when I found myself thinking, "I
do not want to tell Don that I cut off a fingertip the first time I used his cool knife," I finished that part and moved on. Did I mention that this knife is really sharp?
I had planned to sit down and just write something like this tonight:
Got one. Knife works great. More later.
That didn't happen, as you can see. I'm sure that I'll post further thoughts about Valkman's Small Skinner when I'm more alert.
In a nutshell:
~it fits the task that I bought it for,
~its handle and blade geometry make it handle beautifully, and
~it cuts as easily as thought.
We'll be out again tomorrow. I expect that the venison chile will be good this year.
Good night, all.
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