I have a few knives.
Okay. More than a few.
And that is just some of them.
I like them all. I use them all.
But one of my favourites is a simple and small knife.
The Cold Steel Bird & Trout. A lot of Cold Steel’s products and marketing are really over the top, but this one is a subtle little gem.
Knives of different sizes serve different purposes. Clearly this knife would be worthless when trying to hack a tree down for shelter. But for so many other tasks, it’s terrific.
The blade is 57mm (2¼") long, 15mm (¾") wide and 2mm (1/16") thick. It’s very maneuverable.
The handle is 10 cm (4") long, including the ring. The rings inner diameter is 22mm (7/8"). The knife is constructed from AUS6A steel, which I’ve found to be fairly decent. Sharpens up easily enough. It does rust quite easily though.
As the name implies, the design (said to date back before the start of the 20th century) was geared towards small game hunters. Very handy when sitting in a boat cleaning a fish. The ring on the end allows the user to drop it to free up hands to remove the guts and so forth, yet instantly flick it back up in to the hand to continue with cutting tasks.
The one thing I don’t like about it is the supplied sheath. Made of Concealex, which I suspect is a fancy name Cold Steel has given to a common plastic. It was good at first, but over time its retention ability has started to wane. I like neck knives, and the slim profile and light weight of this make it ideal for that mode of carry. When I carry a knife around my neck I wear it upside down. When the sheath can no longer properly grip the knife, and it’s carried up side down, all sorts of wacky things happen. A razor sharp knife suddenly floating around inside your shirt as you jog along is not a pleasant sensation. Hearing the clang of it as it hits the floor of the grocery store is just a tad embarrassing. I realize this knife comes in at a very reasonable price point, but I really wish CS would offer this with a Kydex sheath instead. One of these days soon I will make one myself. In the interim I carry it upright inside my Map’mups.
The Bird & Trout has proven to be a great little knife for all the myriad little tasks I do around the house, around work and in the woods. From a seam ripper, to a cuticle trimmer, to a food prep paring knife, to doing precise cuts in leather, it’s light, sharp and precise.
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