I forged in a gut hook on the back side and the blade has enough curve for skinning. Stabilized Apple wood and the carbon steel is powder coated. The Hunters Axe.
The gut hook is a novel idea! I plowed an old Collins Red Seal hatchet up to the surface on the family farm. It was pretty badly pitted after God knows how long. I worked it down into a 'hawk and just put a spike on the back instead of the roughly 1" diameter hammer head back there. The handle is bodark from the farm that I had buried in cedar loam about a decade earlier. Someone had told me it would help keep it from splitting. Meh, it had split but maybe it would have been much worse if I hadn't.
