Some tender thoughts about your knife

This is a rhetorical question worth asking re most people including myself don’t tend to give it much thought: What makes a knife safety gear?

I don’t carry much on my kayak and same goes for safety gear. A knife is a tool that mostly gets used for other things

Up off of Stinson I used mine to fend off a mammal probably 3x my weight with scary teeth that kept popping up next to me staring down at a beautiful salmon pinned between my thighs. I doubt he was impressed by my expletives but he seemed to understand enough to want to dodge some painful puncture wounds

I don’t do the GoPro thing but picture a big toothy beast looking down at you from above eye level. Furbags scare me more than sharks. Two situations I know of through friends one guy had 4 fingers bitten off and another a big chunk of his inner thigh that required a tourniquet and lifeflight out of ano Nuevo

Long way around to saying pick your knife carefully

I like mine re I can just pull it from the sheath and use it. Whatever you pick attach it to yourself with a leash a little longer than arms length

Primarily I carry one for emergency, attached to my pfd and able to detach one handed.  I carry a pair of pliers with a inline cuter for cutting line and pulling hooks, so not usually in need of the knife for those tasks.  On occasion I do use it to cut gills of a large fish like a big halibut, or lingcod.  I know of one story of a man and his son out kayaking during one of the tournaments and the father flipped over and became entangled in his rod and paddle leashes upside down in the water and barely able to keep his head out of the water.  Had to have his son go to another kayaker to get help with a knife to cut him free.  I've not had to fend off a toothy creature however, but I do have a gaff that I think I would use in that scenario.

There is a recent facebook post of a surfer down in SoCal where the algae bloom is making sea lions go completely crazy and attack people.  It's a super scary and eye opening account of what they can do if they feel like it in the water.

I only see some snippets in the news reports of the event, but his original account on facebook was way way way worse.  Here is one of them though:  https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/sea-lion-attack-algal-bloom-20240212.php

They are serious beasts

I had a bunch of boys in the water at hmb and a big mofo came up in the surf and grabbed a pelican shook it apart and swallowed half, then caught a seagull mid-air that was coming in for a snack, chewed and swallowed it whole, then finished the other half of the pelican beak and all

The boys were all going toward it and I had to call them back

Was pretty stunning to watch

Too much?

I encountered several incidents with the fur back.   One of them following me around and circled my kayak.   I was able to chase it away by hitting the water with my paddle.   On one occasion,  a juvenile seal jumped onto my kayak and I kicked it off with my foot 

I hate sea lions!

I had a smallish one try to jump over the rear aka bar on my AI, and not make it. It was stuck half way over with its teeth snapping a few inches from my ear. I've had others harass me for hours.

Just today, I was pedaling around the SC harbor testing out some new gear, and the place was full of sea lions! It was like my worst nightmare... They seemed bored, with me serving as their plaything. It was unnerving, as a couple of enormous ones made big splashes within 5 feet of my kayak (no AI).

I have a heavy gaff and, like Al, that's what I swing at fur bags (never hit one yet, but that's not for lack of trying). As for a knife, when sailing or using a downrigger, I'd consider it absolutely essential gear.

Several years ago, when salmon fishing with a downrigger at ML, I had a whale rise up to within about 4' below my kayak. Apparently, it noticed me just in time, but as it veered off, it crossed my downrigger line. I instantly cut the line, or I'd for sure have been swimming...

Original point is know how a knife is your friend

Most furbag experiences are harmless other than them stealing your catch. The situation at Stinson could’ve gone a lot worse without my knife. Smart thing would be surrender the salmon and be friends

A couple other adventures come to mind

Free diving the outer edges of steamer a mob swarmed me and a few of the bolder ones came at me like they meant to bite. My only defense was jabbing at them with my speargun Thinking back on that now we spend a lot of time surfing there and the numbers dont seem as thick

Also had two female stellars circling me while freediving down below Carmel. And middle of the night in sf bay i was cutting a huge ball of herring net off a prop and looked to the side was looking into the eyes of a furbag a foot away. Both situations they just seemed curious

Some are more aggressive than others Good reason to have the right knife

My only comment is that I was a diver long before I was a kayak fisher, so I have always kept mine attached to the inside of my left calf. I've tried other places but that's what worked best for me.

Also an old timer diver here though when freediving my knife stayed on my yak

Im abandoning regular wearing of a pfd so will have to rethink where to put mine

I imagine the current dive suits probably have some way to attach a sheath to your calf? I may have to do a mod on one of my suits

Alls well that ends well

I like knives in general.  I spent time fishing in random places.  I bought this knife.  Overkill really.  It will zip open a walleye so quickly.

It cuts line like it’s not there. 

I had it on my kayak on a strap over my shoulders. 

It’s impossible to rust.

Spyderco Aquasalt.

A freshly sharpened pointy dollar store paring knife with a bobber on 6 inches of line so it won’t sink has been standard cargo on my vessel for years. More recently, I have been wearing a diver’s knife on my right lower leg. Sharp but not too pointy with a release button. It wasn’t expensive and I started using it after the cutters I previously would clip to my life jacket rusted solid. I feel good about its utility in a safety situation but need to get used to the fact that it is there and available if needed. It’s barely noticeable outside my 5-mm wetsuit even though it’s a good size in a plastic sheath.

I carry several knives on board. A blue bait shop bait knife in a plastic sheath is attached to the bungee over my "map pickets" and is very easy to reach for utility purposes. A dive knife in the big pocket of my PFD is very sharp and easily reachable. My daily carry Spyderco Salt is somewhere on my person, in a pocket. These are mostly for safety and utility - not defense. I always carry a gaff on saltwater, and wouldn't hesitate to swing at unruly toothy predators who presume me to be an easy mark.

Since posting this I watched a documentary about lions that inhabit coastal deserts of Africa

What caught my eye was they were filmed attacking sea lions and had difficulty biting through the hides Which got me wondering about my flimsy sheath knife

Odds are I’ll never need it again but I might look for something more stout

The Hawaiian version of a gaff comes to mind It would also keep the mammal at distance The one that was harassing me was getting way too close

BTW I was on a boat chasing bluefin last week out of HMB. We were stopped to check the gear and a sea lion started doing acrobatics behind the boat staring at us like it wanted to hop aboard. Captain was shouting at it every time it came up behind the boat

I said “seems like a playful fella”

Deck hand and I happened to look down just in time to see a big gray shark chasing it full throttle to the surface then back down. Felt sorry for the poor bugger

It surfaced a few more times before we restarted the troll