Hunting knife used as bushcraft knife?
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I know an ex saturation diver who's ran a scallop ranch since he retired from sat diving, I did a bit of work for him 20+ years ago collecting and sorting scallop spat. One gets to know someone stood on a drafty raft for hours on end, his pet hates were macho divers watches and particularly macho divers knives, for which he held a special contempt. Although he had even more contempt for those who nicked his scallops from his leased bit of seabed.
He would proudly produce his diving come scallop ranching knife, a sharpened up old style bone handled stainless dinner knife, and show off his trusty £20 casio digital. His reasoning was that he was going to lose the knife at some point, so why pay out a lot of money when he had an endless supply of old cutlery that could do the job just as well. Same with the watch.
He would proudly produce his diving come scallop ranching knife, a sharpened up old style bone handled stainless dinner knife, and show off his trusty £20 casio digital. His reasoning was that he was going to lose the knife at some point, so why pay out a lot of money when he had an endless supply of old cutlery that could do the job just as well. Same with the watch.
Speaking purely for myself, with biggish hands which are mainly palm I find the erganomics of the handle more important than the shape of the blade or the steel used. I'm a huge fan of the Grohmanns Large Camper
http://www.grohmannknives.com/pages/outdoor.html
which fits me and all th tasks I want it to do spot on. I'm not at all sure if its a hunter or a bushcraft knife. I have tried a lot of knives over the years, most far more expensive that the Camper and thankfully I have three sons to palm them off to but for comfort and putting a sharp edge where I want it with enough pressure to do the job for as long as i want to
I always come back to it. When it wears out I will get another.
if you get a chance, try one. I've heard folk slag off the steel on occasion but I've had no trouble with mine. Sharpens easy enough and keeps it's edge well.
I do have the larger version, the flat ground No. 4 survival knife and am going to try and use it more to see if there's any benefit with the bigger blade. Aesthetically it does look more aggressive, which since I try not to freak out the grockles is a consideration and is too heavy for wearing as a necker unlike the camper. That's available with a gut hook so I guess is a actual hunting knife?
i guess what I'm saying in my round about way is there's plenty of designs which do both jobs well without going to the extreme of being only good for one.
i'll get my capote
atb
Tom
http://www.grohmannknives.com/pages/outdoor.html
which fits me and all th tasks I want it to do spot on. I'm not at all sure if its a hunter or a bushcraft knife. I have tried a lot of knives over the years, most far more expensive that the Camper and thankfully I have three sons to palm them off to but for comfort and putting a sharp edge where I want it with enough pressure to do the job for as long as i want to
I always come back to it. When it wears out I will get another.
if you get a chance, try one. I've heard folk slag off the steel on occasion but I've had no trouble with mine. Sharpens easy enough and keeps it's edge well.
I do have the larger version, the flat ground No. 4 survival knife and am going to try and use it more to see if there's any benefit with the bigger blade. Aesthetically it does look more aggressive, which since I try not to freak out the grockles is a consideration and is too heavy for wearing as a necker unlike the camper. That's available with a gut hook so I guess is a actual hunting knife?
i guess what I'm saying in my round about way is there's plenty of designs which do both jobs well without going to the extreme of being only good for one.
i'll get my capote
atb
Tom
What's a grockle? I'm not a native English speaker.
The Grohmann or Canadian boat knife is something I've had on a wish list for a long time but so far, really haven't acquired one and I've even seen one in a store. The design if just lovely, if you don't mind me saying so, and they really aren't that expensive.
The Grohmann or Canadian boat knife is something I've had on a wish list for a long time but so far, really haven't acquired one and I've even seen one in a store. The design if just lovely, if you don't mind me saying so, and they really aren't that expensive.
Actually they didn't bother to butcher the meat. They skinned the animals for the fur, cut off the choice cuts for supper, and left the rest to rot.
So why didn't he just get a cheap shuckers' knife like the pros use? They cost a bit less than a "dinner" knife
Sorry, it's a Cornish term ( wife's family is from down there ) for tourist or some one from another town, mildly derogatory.
Grohmanns do knife kits and always have slight seconds in stock which brings the price down even more. I got a hollow ground boat knife ( I much prefer the flat grinds for general use it turned out ) as a seconds to try that blade form and all there was wrong was the sort of tiny chip out of the wood, the sort you could get from dropping it once th first day out, and a faint S engraved on the blade.
ATB
Tom
Grohmanns do knife kits and always have slight seconds in stock which brings the price down even more. I got a hollow ground boat knife ( I much prefer the flat grinds for general use it turned out ) as a seconds to try that blade form and all there was wrong was the sort of tiny chip out of the wood, the sort you could get from dropping it once th first day out, and a faint S engraved on the blade.
ATB
Tom
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So why didn't he just get a cheap shuckers' knife like the pros use? They cost a bit less than a "dinner" knife
Because he was a rancher, not a shucker
Also he got into the habit of stealing his wife's cutlery when he was a diver, he started out as an abalone diver in tasmania, moved to london in the 60's from where he moved to the west highland and became a scallop diver and married locally. In the early 70's the government offered grants for commercial divers to train in the then new saturation technique, developed by sea-lab in the US, for the new off shore oil development in the north sea. In his time he dived on some of the most high profile publicised deep dives, all the time equipped with his modified dining knives. Scallops here are sold & transported live in the shell. I worked as a shucker myself for a time in the early 80's and we used similar knives to the one in the picture, very bendy and supple, although with a slimmer handle and not unlike a bendy "fruit" knife, just a little longer and sharper.
I'm having a hard time imagining diving for shellfish. here they use long handled rakes to get them from the boat.
Oh, they started out picking them off the low tide, then nets on sticks with a glass bottomed box to see with, then they started diving for them as they became scarcer in shallow water. One can still turn up a few if one knows where to look.
Big money still in dived scallops, the heyday was the 70's though, guys picking up hundreds of pounds worth of scallops daily, but like any klondike most peed the money up against the wall, the pubs did well.
My pal started farming them but realized he didn't have the capital for containment once the shells got bigger, so he leased a large area and seeded his grown on scallops on his bit of sea bed, picking them up as and when he was getting the best price. He's a world authority now.
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