It’s kinda true, you know. Don’t know if I’m revealing some sort of forbidden truth here, but newbies and wannabes in the boonies carry big frickin’ knives.
Er…yeah. Just ignore that.
Clearly a newbie.
And there’s another one.
Could be a Freudian thing, can’t say, I don’t have the education. Truth is, the UWK has always been my favorite knife.
But I stopped carrying it about a year after the pictures above, because it was constantly in my way. As a prybar it has its uses but as a knife it’s just too damned big. This is exactly the opposite of the advice you get in the prepper forums, where you’ll be solemnly informed that carrying anything smaller than a massive kukri in the boonies will bring instant death. But the truth is…
After going on eight years, the gun got bigger but the knife got smaller.
I still like a fixed-blade, because it’s just so dirty out here and it interferes with the gadgetry. Plus I don’t like having to root around in my pocket for my knife. I’ve got a nice Benchmade folder I only carry in town. But I do have to admit…
In all the time I’ve been out here I’ve never once been called upon to fight something to the death with my knife. Knives are tools, not weapons. That big “tactical” knife just marks you as a newbie.
Don’t get me started on tomahawks.
Only once have I wished I had a big,tactical knife. Being foolish, my revolver was in the car, to far away. It looked like I might have to defend my family from a rabid dog with a a Buck folder. I figured it would do the job, but I would get an arm chewed to hell in the process. Bigger knife, tomahawk, machete, sword, etc or the gun I should not have been without would of been better than a folding Buck knife. I like a four inch fixed blade and use,one a lot. Back it up with a pistol now.
First pic makes me giggle a bit!
Glad to see the shield found a spot on the wall and not on the firing line.
Had to laugh at this one, Joel. My first camp knife (fixed blade) was 12 inches long. I looked like a hobbit with a dwarf’s sword. I got one with a 9 inch blade, and it’s better, but too long when I’m sitting. Still have not found the right one to carry on my belt, but the EMT folder in my pocket is an effective tool even though I sure wouldn’t want to have to fight with it. No problem for me, of course, since the XD 9mm seldom leaves my hip. Well, except for the times I CC the old .357, of course. 🙂
The knife I end up using the most is a standard butcher ‘boning’ knife, a thin blade that won’t baton through mesquite but cuts up everything else just fine. Carbon blade – dulls but takes no time to freshen the edge. When cutting spines from prickly pear pads (nopales, egg and chorizo – food for the gods!), a fillet blade works great – you need a fine tip for the fine ‘frog hair’ spines.
The bowie knife – well, not really practical.
On an early dive trip to the Coral Sea I had a shark swimming along next to me which really got my attention. He took off then spun around and came straight at me. I pulled my 4″ dive knife, looked at it, then the shark. I swear he grinned and then went about his other business. The point of the story is a knife makes a lousy defensive tool.
I’ve collected knives for quite some time. Really nice expensive knives too. At the retreat I carry a $20. machete around to handle the Multiflora rose and raspberry and if working around the cabin a $3.folding utility knife. If I’m up in Canada camping a hatchet is a must.
My “survival” knife is a Puma White Hunter blade with a custom handle. I find the weight forward blade to be the best compromise between a knife and a hatchet.
The best knife? The one you have with you. Actually in my case that’s often a little folder on my key ring.
Heh. Guilty. Not too long ago I did something knowing that it was silly: I bought a boar spear. 18″ blade, nearly 7′ overall, completely impractical, but kind of cool.
The vendor does a decent sales job in his demo video.
Now, there are feral hogs in the area, but confronting a boar with that spear would be the absolute last option for me! The spear vendor demonstrates why in this much shorter video.
My carry knife is a Spyderco folder, I rarely want any more than that.
I guess that we all go through that stage in life where bigger is better. For me it was a Cold Steel SRK with a 6 inch blade. I found that while backpacking that when ever I bent over I was jabbing myself in the side with the handle so I got a smaller knife. These days the knife of choice is a Bark River Bravo 1 with a 4.5 inch blade. It is big enough to get the tasks done and small enough not to get in the way.
As for the knife being a defensive tool, well I guess that it is better than nothing. I learned a long time ago (almost the hard way in bear country) that a 12 gauge Norinco* shotgun with an 8 inch barrel loaded with slugs works much better than a large bladed knife ever would. With a total length of 26.5 inches it fits on the side of my pack just fine. You may laugh at Canada’s gun laws but this is an unrestricted firearm that anybody can buy and there is no $200 tax.
* http://www.theammosource.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_5_98&products_id=1668
Been packing around a Cold Steel Finn Bear for a long time. Doesn’t hold an edge great, but it is a handy little thing. Sheath is held together with a zip tie and some gorilla tape. Haven’t found anything I like better, yet.
But…but, I like my two-pound, 12-inch “Bowie.” Some talented, long-gone local made it from, apparently, a truck spring and built a beautiful walnut handle for it. I especially like it when I see a rerun of the movie where Crocodile Dundee is threatened by a New York ghetto thug’s knife. He stares at the little switch blade and laughs, “You call that a knife? This (whipping out his own monster Bowie) is a knife.” The kids melts. What’s life without a little fantasy?
‘course I keep it mostly on the wall and carry a sub-three-inch Buck 501 in town togs and, in the woods, a Navy Pal cut to about four. So I guess you’re right. 🙂
Continung with “more than you care to know,” I did haul the Bowie on two or three Boundary Waters trips, and it served as a decent alternative to a toma…, eerrrrr, I mean hatchet.
You’ll find that the closer people live to nature, the bigger the blades they carry: Mostly 14-18″ machetes throughout the tropical world… Hatchets are much rarer: I can’t imagine why someone would lug around a 16″ hatchet when a lighter 14″ strong knife will do about the same in northern woods (and better than machetes, which tend to get stuck or vibrate on harder temperate climate woods)… Moreover, most wood handle hatchets are difficult to repair if the weak point loosens, swells or rot, as often happens after prolonged use: On the machete’s handle, some cord is wrapped and that’s it, and on a good knife absolutely nothing will ever break at all, this including the better ones of the much maligned hollow handles… G.