A hunting knife is great—and when you use a hunting knife designed by an Alaskan hunting guide who also happens to be a knifemaker, that’s even better.

The Alaskan Skinner from Timberline is a hunting knife designed by knifemaker Russ Kommer, who also is a long-time Alaskan hunting guide. Kommer spent most of his youth in the Minnesota north woods hunting, trapping and fishing. Idaho is where he got his start as a big-game guide in the Selway-Bitterroot Mountains. He took his passion for hunting to Alaska in 1984—which is where he also discovered his love of knives, particularly the hunting knife design, after dressing big game. He learned to design the most functional and comfortable hunting knife he could and started making versions of them in 1997.

Kommer’s custom knives include the hunting knife/skinner, camp knives, folders, “unique” fillet knives, fighters, boot knives, bowies, hatchets and tactical knives. In addition to Timberline, Kommer also has designed knives for CRKT, including the Signature line of hunting knife, and the Escalade and Extreme Mountain hunting knife models for Browning

The Alaskan Skinner features what is called an upswept blade with a hollow grind—great for high-performance field dressing, skinning and other chores associated with big game. Besides that, it will also help you prepare your meals in camp and do the other cutting chores that need doing outdoors.

The blade steel is a 440 stainless that fights corrosion and is relatively easy to sharpen compared to steels such as CPM S30V and others. The handle is a soft Zytel rubber with a palm swell to fill your hand, and finger grooves and a bird’s beak pommel to lock your hand in for any number of cutting tasks, from light slicing to heavy-duty cutting. Overall length: 9.625 inches. A black ballistic nylon sheath with belt loop is both handsome, durable and secure. Weight (including the sheath): 13.5 ounces.

Click here for more about this Russ Kommer hunting knife.