Small Hunting Knives
All North American game can be field dressed and processed with a 3 to 4 inch small hunting knife. With risk of puncture and damage to internal organs creating waste contamination too large of a knife can be a liability, and proper technique allows a finger to follow a blade for belly and pelvis incisions while allowing easy handling and adding very little weight to a hunter’s gear.
With a drop or clip point blade to excise the rectal cavity and proper technique splitting the sternum to the point of the cape, a smaller knife allows greater maneuverability inside the body cavity to free fascia and diaphragm tissue than a larger tool.
The same knife is easy to handle in multiple positions once skinning or quartering has begun, and with high quality modern Crucible Particle Metallurgy steels and other excellent alternatives an entire big game carcass can be prepared to whatever level is required in the field with zero attention paid to the edge of the knife until the job is done.
Larger knives provide additional leverage for breaking a carcass down, greater edge length for increased service life between maintenance operations, and for sportsmen with larger hands or less focus on lightness of their gear a good general purpose alternative – but they are not a necessity.