The Guide to Buying the Best Fillet Knife for Hunting and Fishing
It's hard to find the best fillet knife for hunting and fishing. There are many factors that can cause fillet knives to dull prematurely or even break. We'll discuss some of the key components to look for in your next knife to make it the best fillet knife for fish and game. At the end of this discussion, we will present a fillet knife that meets all of the criteria we have presented here.
What makes a good fillet knife for hunting and fishing?
The Blade - The single most important part of a fillet knife is the blade. Whether you are hunting, fishing, or even in the kitchen, a sharp blade that can hold its edge is extremely important. One of the leading causes of dull blades is due to material softness and corrosion in the form of rust. In order to solve this, the best fillet fish fillet knives will have blades made of a hard alloy that is corrosion resistant. This is one of the leading reasons stainless steel fillet knives have become quite popular over the years, but even stainless steel is known to rust - and there are much better options in terms of hardness. Our latest development included testing a new material that is not common amongst the every day knife users, but is very common among the high end professional chefs: VG 10.
VG 10 is extremely hard material to source (and it's pretty expensive), but the performance of it in terms of holding a sharp edge is second to none. VG 10 is a similar metal to 316 stainless steel in terms of corrosion resistance, but VG 10 is much harder and more rigid material than stainless steel. We've verified this feedback by having several commercial fishermen test conventional 316 stainless steel knives next to our new VG 10 Fillet Knives. Several commercial fishermen informed us they would literally sharpen their stainless steel knives 4-5 times before they would need to sharped the VG 10 one.
The Handle - The second most important part of a fillet knife for hunting and fishing is the handle. It's important for hunters and fishermen to be able to hold a grip while filleting your fish and game. The best fillet knife will have a quality, non-slip and comfort fit grip is ideal not only to maintain consistent cuts of meat, but also for safety purposes. The more control you have over your blade while you're filleting meat, the less susceptible to accidents that can result in injury you are.
In reference to the commercial fishermen that were testing our VG 10 Fillet Knives, the grip was very important to them. Many of them are part-time guides and when they fillet the fish their clients catch, they sure appreciate a comfortable handle. Most of the time, they are cleaning 20-30 fish per trip. Their feedback on comfort lead to an important feature we added while developing our VG 10 Flex Fillet Knife and VG 10 Gut N Bait Knife. The handle on these knives were shaped to conform with the hand of an outdoorsman. This gives us a strong foundation in achieving the goals of extreme comfort and grip, and we were able to optimize the material and surface properties from here to make these two design elements even better.
The Sheath / Protective Cover - a quality knife sheath is very important for hunters and fisherman. Unlike kitchen chefs who can store their knives in a butcher block or drawer, outdoorsman typically have few places available to store their knife.
The best fillet knife sheath will have these characteristics: allow the knife to drain when wet (to prevent surface rust), provide adequate knife protection, and mount to a variety of clothing styles and types.
These design points were the basis for our knife sheath, and we added one more feature: a notch on the sheath to easily cut fishing line or string without removing the knife from the sheath.
Size Matters - The size of your fillet knife can be a difficult decision to make, especially when there are so many different sizes to choose from. Typically, your common fillet knives range in size from 5 inches in length (bait cutting knife) to over 9 inches in length for your larger fish and game animals. After asking multiple commercial fishermen and hunting and fishing guides, we've found that there is one length of knife they all had in common. We also found that this length of knife was the most common length chosen when asked if they had to choose one length, what length would that be? The answer is a 7 inch blade. A 7 inch blade fillet knife is the perfect hybrid for cutting bait; filleting bay fish such as trout, redfish and flounder; filleting offshore fish such as mahi mahi, marlin, tuna, and king mackerel, and filleting game animals ranging in size from deer to bears. Unanimously, a 7inch fillet blade was most commonly used for all cuts of meat.
What's the best all around fillet knife that meets the criteria we have discussed?
Why?
THE BLADE - The VG 10 blade is guaranteed to maintain its corrosion resistance and stay sharper for longer regardless of the environment it's in, leaving you with a crisp edge throughout your entire adventure.
THE HANDLE - The comfort fit, non-slip grip is unique to our knives. The comfort fit handle works well when filleting large amounts of fish and game while the non-slip grip acts as a safety feature to help you maintain control of your knife.
PROTECTIVE COVER - As a safety measure, every VG 10 flex fillet knife comes with its own sheath for safe storage of the knife.
SIZE - Designed for all hunting and fishing adventure, the 5- and 7-inch blades make the VG 10 Flex Knives an ideal solution to all cuts of meat. Whether you are cutting bait on the boat, filleting an offshore catch, or deboning the deer you just harvested, the VG 10 Flex Knife blades can handle it.