The Knife That’s Fed Millions (and Me)

Seven keeper fluke, plus a half-dozen tailor blues we’d found marauding a school of rainfish on the way in: not a bad morning for a young trout and largemouth guy learning the ways of inshore fishing from an old salt. Russ Wilson, the outdoor writer for New Jersey’s Trenton Times, tied off his AquaSport at the Shark River dock while I hauled the cooler to the fillet table.

I jogged to my truck, collected the fistful of knives I’d put on the seat the night before and dropped them on the table. Russ picked up a Buck boning knife and pressed the blade against the scarred tabletop, which was spackled with fish scales. “Nope,” he said. “Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

Russ unsheathed my Rapala Fish ’n Fillet and turned it, the sun glinting off of the thin,