This page is dedicated to knives used for hunting and fishing knives. Hunting knives are used to cut, slice, gut, pierce, skin game, field dress, dress out, cape, trim, quarter, manage, clean game, de-bone, and process game animals. Fishing knives are used to dress, gut, fillet, trim, chop, skin, scale, and process fish.

Hunting knives have probably the most recognizable shapes in the cutlery industry. The blades are usually curved, and often feature fine points. This is because they are used for specific chores like skinning and piercing skin with high accuracy. Any hunter knows the cost of bad knife work when field dressing game or caping a trophy buck. After what a good hunt may cost, a poor knife or bad job here leaves a sad memory. Below are some of the uses, points, and details about hunting knives specifically, their limitations and uses, methods of carry, storage, and sharpening.

A fine knife is a pleasure to use. Unsheathing your fine custom knife after a successful kill is more than history, it honors the entire hunting process. It isn't hard to imagine men of the past, all feeling the same kind of thrill as we do today: planning for the hunt, embarking to territories unknown, enduring the hardships and fascination of the land, detecting and stalking the prey, and the satisfaction of supplying the family or tribe with fresh game. The moment continues as the game is then gutted, cooled, dressed, and quartered for the trip home. True, the tool of the kill is essential. But is a fine hunting knife, or the kill is just target practice.

In my life, I've seen many styles and grades of knife used for hunting. I grew up using a fairly straight, simple light trailing point my father gave me (as most fathers do). It was a decent piece of steel, and I still have it around in a box somewhere. Why do I keep this old plain knife? It's not because it has any monetary value, it's because my father gave it to me, and I carried it on our hunts together. It evokes special memories of our times together, unique to only a father and son. So there is more than just the good use of a fine tool for the hunting sport or game. If you have children, your hunting knife is destined to become an heirloom. 

I've seen a lot of bad knives in my time, all of us have. We've heard stories about having to carry a sharpening stone to the field. We've heard of knife blades bending, rolling over, dulling, or chipping. We've heard about knives unsuited to the task, with the wrong shape or profile, with a blade too thick, or too soft, or too uncomfortable to hold. It's my desire to try to clarify some points from a professional knifemaker about hunting and fishing knives on this page.

• It all starts with the steel. Modern tool steels are a wonder. They can be hard, wear resisting, and tough at the same time. They can also be stainless and corrosion resistant. But there is no super steel (see my FAQ page and Blades page for details about steel hype), and your fine hunting, fishing or field knife must be selected carefully. Let's look at the steels from a hunter's and fisher's standpoint individually.

  1. High carbon tool steels. These are the traditional long-time hunting steels. Before stainless steels, these high carbon steels had achieved a reputation for edge holding, sharpness, and wear resistance. In this steel type, I use O-1 oil hardening high tungsten-vanadium high alloy tool steel. It can be made both hard and tough, ground incredibly thin, is strong, and yet can be sharpened in the field with ease. It is able to achieve and hold an incredibly sharp edge with very little stonework, and you don't have to be an expert to sharpen it. It's drawbacks are that it is not stainless and will rust if not cared for, and is not as wear resistant as the high chromium stainless tool steels. It's the least expensive of the tool steels I use, though it is not cheap. It blues well for a subdued look, and some hunters prefer the mottled, dark, seasoned patina it achieves after several years of use. Because it is moderately easy to sharpen, bringing up the fine edge in the field is no big deal. O-1 is NOT a plain carbon or high carbon steel, it is a true high alloy tool steel, with significant amounts of alloying elements like tungsten and vanadium, so this strong steel holds a very good edge, much better than plain carbon or high carbon steels.

  2. High carbon, high chromium martensitic tool steels. Specifically, I use 440C. This is a great steel, and I use it for most of my knives. It has universal appeal, being capable of both hardness and toughness, has the highest stain resistance, and is very wear resistant. It is a bit tougher than O-1, so can be ground in a thinner cross-section without weakness, thus is capable of a thinner edge. It is more wear resistant, consequentially, it is not easy to field sharpen. The idea here is that your knife is sharp and wear resistant for several hunts, and should not need sharpening in the field. The high chromium content of this steel allows a very fine mirror finish, which is easy to clean, and is highly corrosion resistant. Of course, even stainless tool steels can rust if not cared for, or if stored with blood, tissue, or wetness in a leather sheath. Read more about corrosion and stainless steels on my knife care pages here and here. Care is minimal though, since 440C has 17% chromium. This is the only way to go for a fishing knife, as it has the highest corrosion resistance of any of the custom knife tool steels.

  3. High molybdenum martensitic stainless tool steel. What I'm talking about here is ATS-34 (or 154CM). It's essentially the same as 440C, but three percentage points of chromium have been replaced by molybdenum. This makes this a very, very tough tool steel. It's still stainless, though not as stain resisting as 440, but it can be made a lot tougher. I emphasize can be made, because it's up to the knifemaker to set the final hardness and temper depending upon the blade geometry and intended use. See my "Blades" page here for more details. ATS-34 is very hard to field sharpen, so your ATS-34 knife must be thin and sharp enough for your field use and hunt. It can be used for fishing knives, and perform quite well, as the cross section of the knife blade can be made thinner than 440C, and still be fracture-resistant. But the trade off here is stain resistance, as blood, orange juice, tomato juice, or other acidic fluids can corrode it over time. ATS-34 takes one of the most beautiful polishes of any metal period, which makes for a fine looking knife that is easy to clean.

  4. Extremely high carbon die steel. The steel here is D2. D2 is an older steel, originally used for dies to press and stamp and cut out other metals, and is also used in ball bearings as the load surface. It can be made to be one of the hardest, toughest, most wear resistant tool steel blades, period. It has so much carbon and enough chromium that in the crystalline structure of the steel, in addition to iron carbides forming, forms chromium carbides, creating a structure of extremely hard particles, leading to very high wear resistance. This wear resistance is so hard that the knife cannot usually be field sharpened, which may be a drawback. The steel is also not a true stainless, only stain resistant as it has only 12% chromium. So blood, tissue, acidic fluids will corrode and stain this metal. The crystalline structure is also apparent in a high polish, and the surface displays an "orange peel" type of pattern. It is also expensive.

  5. Other steels I use in hunting and fishing knives: I've used and will use M2, BG42, A1, CPMS30V, CPMS60V, pattern-welded stainless and carbon steel damascus, and RWL-34 powder metal steels also, only by special order and request. Each of these has specific applications, limitations and benefits.

• Blade geometry is more than important on hunting knives: it's critical. How thin a custom knife is ground depends upon the intended use, the cross-sectional thickness supporting the edge, the profile (shape) of the blade, and the steel type, hardness, and temper. No where is this so apparent as in hunting and fishing knives, as so much is usually asked of them. They must usually be thin and sharp enough to open tough hides and skins without snagging or ripping, and that might mean cutting through dirty and abrasive hair, mud, and scales. These materials are abrasive on a cutting edge, so high hardness and a medium temper is usually required. The blade must be thin enough to have a low sharpening angle for the finest cut. See more about these angles on my "Blades" page here.

The shape of the blade has a lot to do with how a hunting knife is used, carried, and whether or not it's successful. Here are some of my most popular hunting knives. If you're familiar with hunting or game and field knives, you'll recognize trailing point skinners, drop point skinners, field dressing knives, gut hooks, line cutters, sweeping bellies, capers, and field pairs.