Hello. Tommy Andersson here with a few words from Sweden.
Right now we are in the middle of our hunting season, in our hunting team we have 8 big moose and 16 calves to shoot. After 2 weeks we are little more than half way. We have also roe deer, hare, fox and wood birds like capercaillie and black grouse to hunt. But it is only moose we hunt in teams, roe deer, hare, etc, we are hunting more for ourselves. In Sweden we have a lot of animals but in southern Sweden the hunting areas are small. Our team's hunting area is a little over 2000 hectare.
Knives are one of our topics of conversation when we have coffee break.
Some of the older hunters are holding fast to the big knives with long blades. My feeling is that you don’t need a bowie knife when you are hunting. The skin on a moose is not thicker than 4-5 mm and you don’t have control over a long knife in a moose stomach.
I think that a knife is perfect when you can hold the knife and put your forefinger over the back of the blade to protect the point.
Now you have full control over the knife and can take out intestine, heart, lung, etc without any mistakes or contamination.
It is when you cut the animal down into small pieces that you need a butcher knife.
When you hunt you have to be serious and its better to do time on the shooting range than track after a bad shoot on a moose. That can take days before you find it. We have been lucky this year, only 2 animals the last ten years have been wounded and run away, but we found them after 2-3 houers. That is absolutely the worst thing to happen for a hunter and for the animal.
Skining is not a hard job with the right knife:) The blade should be a little wider and you work with the first 4 cm on the blade. You start to skin the back legs so you can hang up the animal and then you work all the way down to the head. It takes only 20-25 minutes to skin a moose with a sharp knife. It is the same method on Moose and deer.
It is with these rules in mind, I try to make knives for hunting people.
The winter is coming and the days are shorter and shorter, it’s this time of the year I make the most of my knives. I have bought blades and handle material for many new knives and I have a lot of ideas in my head. So now I'm just waiting for that moment when I shall have the right feeling to make knives.
I must thank all of you who mail me and write so many good words about my work!!!!
It gives me more energy to make and create new knives, and I like to hear that those who have bought a knife from me are satisfied.
Regards
Tommy Andersson
SWEDEN
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