USA -(Ammoland.com)- Buck Knives has a new fish fillet knife which I can’t wait to test out. Yes, I know, all of the guides and real fishermen use an electric fillet knife now (and have for 30 years.).
Dad wouldn’t let us fillet fish when we were growing up. He said it wasted too much meat. He also made us scale them with a spoon. Does anyone still do all of this? If so, don’t make your kids do it because you’re eccentric!
Hillary Clinton would have a kid be able to sue their parents for having to take out the trash so surely I was in the abused class as well!
Being serious, if you still haven’t made the switch over to where you fillet your fish, you need to consider doing so. If you do it properly you don’t waste any meat. But more importantly, it is so much easier to cook them and you use 2/3’s less grease.
So yes, an electric fillet knife is the ticket but a straight blade still has a spot its place as well.
Here are some examples:
- You’re backpacked into the backcountry and want to fry up a mess of fish, even if you’re only four miles in, that’d take 422 fifty ft. extension cords to reach a power source! If you’re 20 miles in, that’s 2112 extension cords. Not real feasible.
- If you only have a few fish and don’t want to dig out an electric fillet knife, cords etc. and have to clean them up.
- In many fish camps you won’t have an electrical source. At least not in some of the remote areas that I camp and fish at.
So what attributes should a good fillet knife have? That depends on what species of fish you will be filleting. I notice over on the coast they use larger knives than I do while inland. Also for halibut they use a really long super flimsy knife.
But for the normal guy catching freshwater fish (crappie, perch, bass and walleye) I’d recommend a 6-inch blade. I even fillet my salmon and steelhead with a 6-inch blade but an 8-inch would work fine too.
I don’t like a super, super flimsy fillet knife or I don’t have blade control. I think a lot of companies mess up and try to make their fillet knives super flexible.
So with the requirements that I have for a fillet knife, I’d say Buck tried to build one that falls in the middle of the road so as to try to please everyone. The Abyss had a 6 ½ -inch blade and is just almost on the edge of being too flexible for me. I’d like it better it was no more than 6-inches but a lot of people favor a long blade.
I like the handle. It has a finger guard and finger groove. On the sides of the handle it has a groove which the tips of your fingers sink into to ensure a firm grip. This groove is on both sides so it will work equally well for right or left-handed people.
I also like the sheath that it comes with. The knife fits firmly down into it and while I don’t want to say that it cannot be dislodged….it fits in super tight and I don’t see how that it could pop out even in a pretty good fall. It also has five brads on the cutting side which should further aid in you not getting cut if you fall while backpacking or even in a horse wreck.
So my quick summary. While I wish it had a 6-inch blade, 6 ½ will work. I plan on using it this winter ice fishing and then, of course, this spring crappie fishing and this summer while backpacking.
Specs:
- Blade: 6 ½-INCHES
- WT. 3 oz. Plenty light enough to carry in your pack.
- Handle: NYLON
- Origin: MADE IN THE USA!
- Steel: 420 HC STEEL. It has the corrosion resistance of chromium stainless steels which will be beneficial on a fillet knife due to the environment they live in. Rockwell hardness of Rc58.
About Tom Claycomb:
Tom Claycomb has been an avid hunter/fisherman throughout his life as well as an outdoors writer with outdoor columns in the magazine Hunt Alaska, Bass Pro Shops, Bowhunter.net and freelances for numerous magazines and newspapers. “To properly skin your animal you will need a sharp knife. I have an e-article on Amazon Kindle titled Knife Sharpening for $.99 if you’re having trouble”
