Over the years I’ve gone through enough knives to outfit a steakhouse, but most of them have been just another knife. That all changed the first time I used a Havalon. My buddy Steve let me use his to cape my Dall sheep, and I couldn’t believe how fast I was able to get it done. I was sold on it right then and there as a caping knife, but Havalon knives are much more than that.

As most of you can probably relate, work too often gets in the way of the hunting I would much rather be doing, and from the day I got back from my Chugach goat hunt, it was 60- to 70-hour work weeks with little hope of escape. All summer I had been looking forward to hunting the late bow season for moose, during which my dad and I took a nice meat bull last year. It wasn’t looking like I would get much time to hunt it this year, but I was finally able to sneak away the last three days of September. After throwing some gear together, I headed up to dump my boat in the river.