I think of knives and blade tools as gear. They are cool to look at, exciting to buy, and a pleasure to toy around with. This creates a sort of problem for hunters, who tend to accumulate a lot of excess blades that they don’t really need.

If you’ve got endless funds for gear, this isn’t a problem. But if your knife-buying habits are affecting your ability to get, say, a good pair of boots, that means your knife-buying habits are impeding your ability to hunt as hard as you can. Which is to say, I’ve seen a lot of hunts ruined by foot problems, but I’ve never seen a hunt ruined by a knife problem.  So what knives and blade tools do you really need?

It depends on what you’re doing.

Multi-tool Never leave home without it. Your multi-tool should have a serrated blade, a bone saw, needle-nose pliers, and a bit receiver that can handle whatever bits are necessary to do quick repairs on your rifle, bow, or other equipment. Pictured here (item A) is a SOG B66-N Power Assist. A great thing about SOG multi-tools is that you can customize them with whatever blades you want.

Skinning Knife While you can certainly hack your way through a skinning job with a multi-tool, a quality skinning knife is nice to have along. In fact, it should be regarded as essential. Excellent options include B) custom knife by Brian Goode; C) SOG Huntspoint skinning knife; D) Phil Wilson Smoke Creek drop point; E) Havalon Piranta (a replacement blade razor knife that is lightweight, compact, and extremely sharp).

Utility Knife Lets you keep your skinning knife sharp and ready for its intended purpose; can be used for cutting everything from rope to wood to cheese. Pictured here: F) SOG Pentagon Elite (folder, with serrated); G) SOG NW Ranger (fixed, non-serrated).

Bonesaw Useful when hunting large-sized big game, especially in the backcountry. Allows you to dismantle carcasses efficiently and cleanly, with no jagged bones, and to remove skull caps when you want to keep the antlers or horns of an animal without having to pack out the entire head. Also handy around camp for fire making and various woodcraft tasks. Pictured here (H) is the Knives of Alaska Bone Saw.

Woodsaw Let’s take a look at the SOG Folding Camp Saw (I). This can easily double as a bone saw, but the more aggressive tooth pattern makes it better suited for wood. Great for building blinds, trimming shooting lanes, or cutting firewood and performing camp chores on extended backcountry trips.

Hatchet SOG FO9-N Hand Axe (J) is a lightweight hatchet, tad heavier and more cumbersome than a bone saw, but it serve equal functions with butchering. Also works great as a camp tool for driving tent stakes, splitting kindling, and fashioning emergency tools and equipment from native wood supplies.

Meet the new, patent-pending cow and calf call from Phelps Game Calls that uses inhale technology to produce crisp and clear sounds every time.  Features a replaceable voice module.

A versatile fixed-blade capable of performing throughout any season, on any species.

Rock-solid optic that optically punches high above its class.

When it comes to blade-tools, a small-game hunter can get by in the field quite nicely with nothing but a quality multi-tool. A folding or sheath knife might be nice for cutting a block of cheese during your lunch break, but in a pinch your multi-tool’s blade will do the job just as effectively. Brands to Know Both Leatherman and SOG make high-quality multi-tools, each with their own upsides. Leatherman tools have great locking mechanisms, high...

Hunters tend to have some strong opinions when it comes to choosing a hunting knife. I’m no different and I like to keep things simple. For most of my big game hunting, I keep a single fixed blade knife like Benchmade’s Steep Country in my pack. And, for small game and birds, I like the Saddle Mountain Skinner’s slimmer blade. Really, I could get by with either knife for all of my hunting. I tend to avoid specialty blades that veer away from the...

It’s been said that a good arrow will fly true out of a bad bow, but a bad arrow cannot be made to fly well from even the best bow. When hunting small game it is important to have the proper arrow and head combination to get a proper flight. Arrows Arrows must be straight, have proper stiffness, weight, and length to work with any given bow.  All of these factors combined to determine the characteristics of the flight of the arrow. For instance...