The hunting knife

Hunting knives are personal tools and most hunters have a preference. Many of today’s young hunters, however, seem to struggle with knives better suited for survival use. The problem is that there are so many good knives about and unless you know what you want, you can end up taking what the salesperson talks you into.

My advice is to think outside the square and avoid the very popular long-bladed survival and ‘fighting’ style knives, as the only thing the hunting knife is designed for is skinning, cutting and field-dressing. This means that it has a single blade designed to skin, cut and bone the animals you hunt - ranging from birds to buffaloes. If the blade is too big or small, it makes the task difficult - the reason you should always match the blade to the game you hunt.

A dedicated game knife only needs a single blade. You do not require cutting saws, wirecutters or serrated edges and other accoutrements, as it makes that one knife difficult to handle.

In my misspent and always broke youth, I struggled when skinning and dressing deer, goats and kangaroos with nothing more than a two-bladed Western Castrator pocket-knife and a