Guard on Your Hunting Knife?

[DancesWithKnives]

How do you feel about having a lower finger guard on your hunting knives? Necessary, advisable, no big deal?

One of my favorite hunters is a Pronghorn style knife made by Bill Burke, who studied under the legendary Ed Fowler. It has a very substantial lower guard and Ed feels they are essential for safe hunting use. One of my other favorites, made by Joe Olson, also has a guard---albeit much more modest in size.

On the other hand, many Scandinavian hunting knives have no guards and those folks have certainly had centuries of field experience.

So what's your feeling on lower finger guards?

DWK

[Just a Hunter]

I feel a guard is highly advisable on any knife which will be used in a wet/slick envirobment.

[rimrock]

a guards almost mandatory feature on a knife used where your appling force and its likely wet and slick

[Bushman]

My fixed blade knives that I use mostly are filleting knives and they and my folders don't have guards, only ergonomic shaped handles. To my way of thinking, if I am exerting that much force on a knife blade that my hand is in danger of slipping down on to the blade, I should not be using a knife in the first place. Maybe a saw or a cleaver.

[GF.]

Come to think of it, my old 'Sharpfinger' sort of has an integral guard, just in the shape of the blade...

On a Bowie knife, they make sense to me. On a hunting blade, I don't think so, because honestly, I've never had much reason to exert much pressure on a blade while skinning or gutting an animal, and it seems that a guard would only keep your hand from sliding forward - but what do you do with a hunting knife where you're pushing straight down on the tip?

Again, with a Bowie, I suppose they were necessary to the blade's role as a close-combat weapon, for stabbing the opponent when you can and parrying his blows when you must.

But think about the knives used all day, every day by meat-cutters and the like. I don't recall ever seeing a finger guard on one, and one would think that in a cold room, cutting nice, ich beef all day long, that fingers would go numb and hands would get pretty well slicked-up.

But hey, if you like the way they look, I don't see any reason to avoid them....

[Twanger]

I predominantly use my Buck 110 folding knife to both gut and butcher deer and spend approximately 100 hours a season at it.

It does not have a guard, and I have never felt that I really need one, even when busting through the sternum during field-dressing, or elbow deep in the rib-cage while cutting through the esophogus.

A guard sticking down below the level of the blade seems like it might get in the way while chopping or slicing meat on a cutting board for the scraps bag.

[DancesWithKnives]

As long as the guard doesn't hang down farther than the thickness of my index finer, I personally don't feel that it seriously gets in the way of my cutting. However, I know guards bother some folks a lot more than they bother me so the observation is certainly valid.

I haven't had many problems with guardless knives. However, when I shoot something at 7:50PM after being in the field since 6AM and I need to get it field dressed in the dark and under less-than-ideal weather conditions, a guard may be prudent insurance against injuries caused by fatigue-induced carelessness.

DWK

[Just a Hunter]

A guard on a knife is like a condom for your johnson.
You could go a lifetime without needing either, but should you ever make one mistake
you will surely wish you had used the extra protection.

[ncboman]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v50/ncboman/Trees%2007/92907acorns012reh.jpg

Am I in danger because my knife doesn't have a guard?

[Just a Hunter]

Am I in danger because my knife doesn't have a guard?

Would you be safer if it did?

In life we all make decisions based upon our own acceptable risks.
Most of my knives dont have a guard, but all of my hunting knive's do.

I would use a knife such as your own for cleaning game without a second thought if that was all I had available at the time.
With that being said I would gladly take a fixed blade knife with a guard if given the choice.