I have been carrying a small Shrade while hunting for 10 years and have skinned several whitetails with it. In RSA it was used almost every evening as the skinners did not have enough knives to go around and everyone of them wanted to get paid.

Other than that it was not needed in Africa. However I will always have it with me in the field. My PH had two PUMA's he had owned for 25 years. One in his field pack and the other for skinning, but the skinners got to use both of these also.

However, it was drilled into them every night no one was to even "think" about sharping our knives.

I always carry my fixed blade Lloyd Pendleton skinner while on safari.

I have messed around with it quite often, helping skin the odd critter. Not because I had to, but because I wanted to.

I have only really HAD to use it once, to cut off an elephant's tail!



I hope to use it for that purpose again many more times!

My "new" favorite is a Bark River Gameskeeper. 4 1/2" blade, A-2 steel; plus it's nearly 1/4" thick. Unlike some, I don't find the 6 oz. slow me down at all.
Dave

I like my Buck Personal model, I've only had it for 40 years. Bought a lot of knives in that time but always went back to the buck.
As for carrying your knife in Africa I figure it's like a strip club "I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it".
Just be careful when the tracker or skinner asks to borrow your custom knife, the first thing they do is sharpen it against the roughest rock they can find, wheter you could shave with it when you handed it to them or not!

Tom T

https://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1621043/m/924100073

I like Muela and have several i brought back from Spain

I carried one of Gene Ingram's and they are fantastic knives. I did a bit of cutting while on my trip to Zim and the knife performed great. I let our tracker and skinner use it as well.

http://geneingramknives.blademakers.com/

quote:

Originally posted by PG:
For Africa, I only take a utility knife such as a swiss army knife or gerber multi tool. I also take a benchmade folder, because I always have one.

My fav hunting knife for working on critters is a gerber pro hunter. They stopped making them So I bought them as I could find them so as to have spares. Work great, but don't have a macho look. Maybe that is why they didn't sell well.

Regards, PG

another vote for the pro hunter
1 have 2 clip point ones and a drop point lovely and cheap too. great tools.... my phs are all carrying one, cos they like the practicality of it. needless to say i am running low on spares