At 13 yo I had a Buck woodsman, my, at the time, perfect knife. When I was about 28 yo +,-, the heyday for my generation anyway, of perch fishing, on the frozen bay of Green Bay, out of Dykesville actually, I was in a ice shack and tying up my rig, my cherished knife was in my lap, for some reason I moved and the pommel hit perfectly vertical on the floor and forward, (of course never back) bounced with a nice 1 1/2 gainer into the 8" hole in the ice. I watched it for quite some time, sink slowly until it went out of site somewhere deep into the 80' abyss.
Fast forward to 2015, 15 minutes from the close of opening day, I had just secured one of my biggest bucks of my life. My knife a Great Eastern Cutlery. A limited edition trapper with a chestnut handle made from an old torn down and the wood refurbished, Amish built covered bridge from somewhere USA, dont remember. I used it to field dress the buck, my son came over to give me a hand dragging it out. I realized when at the cabin I no longer had my knife. I went back the next day to look for it, No snow that year, just brown leaves, something a chestnut handle would camo well with. I looked, more like sifted through that dirt for quite sometime, and obviously, found nothing.
I went to Crystal Falls MI that week to a store that specialized in quality cutlery , most notably Bark River and Marbles, not made in China knives. I picked up a fixed blade Bark river Little Creek, and YES it had orange G-10 scales for the handle. Have not lost that one.....yet!
