“A blunt knife is not worth putting in your pocket.”
My French Opinel lock knife is lightweight with a razor sharp stainless blade; this is the No.8 model which fits my hand perfectly.
When seine net fishing off Cape Wrath I’m readying to gut the catch of haddock, using an old wide-bladed knife supplied to the boat crew. It was kept razor-sharp for high-speed gutting.
With their two entrances our creels were meant for lobsters and crabs but often caught fish and conger or moray eels. Both were dangerous adversaries and cousin Peter, another inshore fisherman, once came into the harbour with his thumb hanging off after tangling with a conger. I’d keep well away from a trapped conger by opening the creel and letting the five-foot of angry eel slither into the bilges to cool off a wee bit before gathering the courage to cut him up into half a dozen pieces while my rubber boot held his head.
Often after baiting and moving the lobster pots we’d troll for fish – saithe, mackerel and cuddings – on the way back to the harbour. We’d use the ‘boardie’, a three- by eight-inch piece of wood that pulled our trolling flies deep until a fish struck and the boardie emerged on the surface along with the hooked fish. Hauling in a two-foot long saithe, I cut it into chunks for our bait barrel.
An old herring cask, this barrel sat in the corner of the old salmon house. Its flagstone roof supported by rotting beams became a hazardous place and I always glanced apprehensively at the ceiling as I strode in to fill the bait barrel. Opening it unleashed a rank odour of rotting, salted fish – the regular topping up always seemed to be my job.
Grandad used a folding knife suitable for both jobs – cutting binder twine ashore and tying lobster claws offshore.
Checking for gunwale rot on my 1969 Mirror dinghy is typical of the jobs for my Leatherman.
You wouldn’t want to work on this busy foredeck without a good knife in your pocket.