I went on my annual deer hunting trip to the camp in central Ontario that I own with my 2 lifelong friends.

The hunt went well despite the nasty weather, early Thursday morning found me standing in a wooden ladder treestand overlooking a swampy beaver narrows that connects two dense conifer areas.

It was raining and the accumulated snow on the trees was sliding off making it quite noisy in the bush. Suddenly at the forest edge I saw a deer's feet walking under the balsam fir cover. I brought the rifle to my shoulder and popped off the scope caps, I heard a low grunt and an 8 point buck stepped into the clearing about 25 yards from me. I snapped off the safety and since he was quartering toward me, shot him at the base of the neck angling the bullet into the chest. Instant death, he did not even twitch.

Because my hunting partners were going to push toward my stand location, I just waited in my treestand. When they were close I saw more feet approaching from the other bush edge, but these were different. A huge bear came out of the bush about 20 feet from my stand and crossed the opening into the bush beyond, it paid no attention to the dead deer as it passed by.

I gutted the deer where it fell and dragged it along the swamp edge to our ATV access trail about 200 yds away; quite a chore for a middle aged softy like me. I turned the dragging over to two younger camp members as I neared the trail, as there was some blowdown to navigate through.

I process my own game at home which is a time consuming job, but I like the finished product and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I am very slow at this chore because I am careful to remove all the fat, bone and connective tissue from the meat. It takes me a full day to skin and quarter the hanging deer in the garage; then butcher, wrap and clean-up the mess in the kitchen.

I was at the grinding stage last evening when two of my kids offered to help. My teenaged son turned the hank crank meat grinder while my youngest daughter feed the trimmings into it. My job was to double wrap the deer burger for the freezer.

I mostly used a Frosts Mora Clipper knife with a 4" carbon steel blade/rubber handle to butcher the deer, but found that I needed a knife with a longer blade to divide the ground meat into blocks for packaging.

With my slimy hand I reached for an old Mora original knife (I think it is a #3), with a 6" carbon steel blade and oval wooden handle. I placed my thumb on the back of the blade and started to apply pressure to cut through the block of meat, that is when I fell it. I was holding the knife up-side down and my thumb was actually on the edge not on the back of the knife. I caught this mistake early, before the blade made it all the way through my skin, but this brief error had "trip to the hospital for stitches" written all over it!

I remembering reading about this very problem in a survival book and searched my home library for the reference.

I found it in "Ray Mears Essential Bushcraft", page 26; "Never use a knife with a symmetrical grip: in poor light or when you are tired, you may mistake the edge for the blade back and cut yourself".

I was thinking that blade jimping or a slightly raised thumb rest may also help you notice which side of the blade is up.

So a long story for a brief knife tip, but I know my next knife purchase will have features that will allow me to identify the orientation of the blade by feel.

Thanks for following along,

Mike