hey guys kevin estella with fieldcraft survival and in this video installment for eastman's
hunting journal i want to talk about something that is commonly referred to as the kill kit
but i don't want to talk about it in terms of big game hunting i kind of want to look at it
as like a broad overview and speak to it in regards to the concept of say like the modern
hunter gatherer someone who's using maybe like a 22 and an ultralight spinning rod or fly reel and
rod setup to live off the land now typically when we talk about a kill kit we always work from
success backwards when i think of white tail hunting i'm from the the east you know i always
have to think about how am i going to drag this deer back to my vehicle and that usually means
incorporating some type of one-inch webbing or quarter-inch webbing or half-inch webbing
and a flashlight that i can wrap it around the deer's antler's head and i can actually drag that
deer out of there when it comes to fishing i never leave home without a stringer and you can make a
very effective stringer very low cost and very lightweight stringer just from a backpacking tent
peg a little bit of accessory cord and a split ring so whenever i go into the field
and i think from success backwards i think of what happens when i catch that fish how can i
hold on to it keep it alive until i'm ready to filet it or gut it and filet it
so i always think what do i need stringer drag rope maybe even if you are a big game hunter
you're using some type of game bags like these from our good friends over at kefaru
another thing that you might want to think about when it comes to your kill kit is what in addition
to the knife which we'll get to in a second might you want to carry that will make your
life a little bit easier small game hunting there are a lot of times when you're cutting
around the joint as opposed to cutting through the bone but sometimes it just makes it easier to
just snip things with a good pair of lightweight garden shears i've used these for pheasant
hunting i don't know how many times and they've processed a lot of game inexpensive lightweight
and it will save the edge of your knife so a good lightweight pair of shears goes a long way
another thing that you might want to consider and this is kind of controversial but we'll
talk about both sides of it are using field dressing gloves now some guys will tell you
you should never use gloves get your hands dirty get your knife dirty and i get it
and i've done it with and without gloves but i also know that i don't like doing my laundry
i don't like having to scrub blood out of my clothing if i don't have to and i also know
that if i'm going to spend extended days in the field i don't want to have that scent of blood
on me as i'm waiting to get picked up or whatever it may be so i don't mind bringing field dressing
gloves the big gauntlets that come all the way up to my shoulders and then latex gloves that go
over my hands i don't mind doing that because it does make my cleanup very very simple if you guys
aren't cool with getting kind of ribbed by your buddies for wearing gloves and don't bring them
but just be prepared to do some laundry all right so now the moment of truth this is what everyone
always wants to know what about the knives well there are a lot of different knife choices out
there you can go with exchangeable havalon style blades which use basically a scalpel
just realize that it's not a true dedicated fixed blade knife it's a folder and there are plenty of
people every single year that when they're working on the inside of an animal they lose
the blade the blade breaks off and they cut their fingers so make sure that you bring a boo-boo kit
as part of your kill kit because you never know if you're accidentally going to cut yourself
and especially if you're working on an animal with cold hands you don't want your hands to lose the
dexterity or the sensitivity and end up cutting yourself that would probably be bad another thing
you may want to bring inexpensive knives that are very very easy to sharpen now these two knives
from victorinox the stiff boning knife and this butcher knife right here i can't tell you how many
animals i've processed but the trade-off is even though they're very large and comfortable in hand
they're bulky in the pack so i can sharpen these up pretty quickly they do lose their edge a little
bit faster than knives that have stronger steel but they do feel pretty good in the hand even with
field dressing gloves on i know that i can clean these knives up if i happen to lose one or break
one they're very inexpensive other options along the way could include smaller knives that look
very similar you'd be amazed at how many animals you can clean with just a small knife everyone
wants the big cool sexy knife but a little knife like this is what you need for caping out animals
something like this you can do a deer with you can do fish with you can do all sorts of things
with just these two little knives but you are going to pay for them because they are slightly
more expensive these are from bark river knife and tool now you may find that you're going to carry
a dedicated knife like this one and only one knife and you can do
pretty much everything with a single knife this is the black foot from montana knife
company josh smith i haven't had a chance to clean too many small game with this but in a
couple weeks i'll be going with one of our other employees here at fieldcraft and hopefully this
will see its fair share of whitetail one thing i'm gonna recommend if you carry only one knife
please reconsider that you may lose that knife and if you do only carry one knife
here is what i want to get to carry something that will let you sharpen that knife because
you'll find that as you're working through hide as you're working through fat you might
be working on wart hogs or something wild boar that have dirt and grime built into their fat
ground into their fat and it's going to destroy your edge one of the benefits of carrying multiple
knives is you can use one while your buddy's sharpening one and you can do a trade-off
not a bad idea the last thing i'm going to say for your kill kit consider the time of day that
you may be processing that animal and how long it might take you not a bad idea to carry some
type of flashlight not a bad idea to carry some type of headlamp now as much as i love
a good strong flashlight like this a headlamp might be more practical always look at your
flashlight and see if it has the capability to do this so i can have a handheld flashlight
and i can also have a head mounted flashlight as long as the clip is oriented correctly
all right guys that's the kill kit plan from success backwards think about every single
stage from taking that animal as soon as you catch it shoot it you you land it and work from there
one last thing to remember you don't want to leave with a bad experience so
take your time planning and when you think that you have your plan all squared away consult your
hunting buddies see if there's something that you forgot in your excitement to get out into
the field personally i know i'm going to be going out in a couple weeks and i'm probably going to
forget something if i don't ask the folks that i'm going with so don't do this alone
maybe some of these ideas will encourage you to bring something that you might have forgotten
about already but talk to your hunting buddies because when it comes to processing game and
bringing it back from the field it's good to have more than one head in the game all right
guys i'm kevin estella with field craft survival thank you so much for watching see you next time