snip
I designed it for the way I process a deer. I like my venison tasty, tender and well aged, which means I like it rare and not gamey. Every hunter has different opinions, but to me the best venison is very clean, which allows you to eat it safely while still pretty rare. So the way you process it is important. To start, I generally take a head shot if given the opportunity, to avoid disturbing anything in the body cavity and to prevent a long run, and tracking it. Also, I don't field dress a deer, I put it on a tractor and get it up to my skinning area pretty quickly where I process it the way my step father taught me (and the way a farmer taught him to butcher pigs). I skin it down leaving a little around the genitals and anus. I pull that out a short ways and tie that stuff off. That way there is no danger of feces or urine contaminating anything. Then I open it up a little bit taking care not to cut anything I don't mean to. I don't split the pelvis like most folks. I do reach up in and disconnect all the stuff connecting the reproductive and excretory stuff to the pelvis, then pull that stuff down. Then I finish opening it up and let all that stuff fall into a chum bucket under the deer. Sometimes I'll split the ribcage, sometimes I won't. I won't go into more detail because I've found that some people get squeamish (and would prefer not to contemplate where meat comes from, which is their prerogative) but the tools you use dictate to some extent how smoothly this all goes. When I'm done I have a neat clean carcass without nicks and without bacteria in the meat. Nicks through the fascia can introduce bacteria into the meat, leading to smells and unhealthy food (if eaten rare).
All of this is where knife design comes in. My old buck clip point was too long and the clip point tip nicked meat. Another popular shape is kind of leaf shaped and short with a gut hook. That doesn't nick meat so bad, but it doesn't fit up into the pelvis or handle well either. An area with belly is important, but you don't need much, and making the blade that fat for skinning? If you're skinning by carving with that giant belly, you're doing it wrong...
I personally think gut hooks are inelegant. I think they're often ugly, when they bunch up they can get hair on the meat, they weaken the blade and a blade that fat handles poorly (for me) and they're unnecessary. With about one deer of skinning experience a hunter using a drop point design, with the edge out, can unzip a deer fast, exactly where you want it, and without nicking anything. You lay it flat against the deer and control the depth of cut with the angle. Once the hide gets started over the edge it stays there during the cut. It is just my personal opinion here.
For the way I process a deer I need something with moderate length, a narrow tip with a good belly at the very end. The handle needs to allow me to put the bottom into the palm of my hand and extend the blade out like an addition to my index finger. D2 doesn't rust much and holds up to hide and a thin hollow grind makes shallow cuts in flesh better than anything. I never dangle a *sharp* knife off my wrist or anything else, so a lanyard hole is of no use to me, I just set it down next to the bone saw on a table. I need a decent index finger indent or a guard, because hands get slippery, and I like my skinner sharp like a scalpel. Those requirements drove this design.
