Hi David, Sorry we have an agreement to not produce the Leech Lake design in our own products. But if you haven’t returned that last Leech Lake fillet we could give it a proper sharpening for you.

Since it is a 2018 I would be almost certain it was our work.

So far all of the fillets that we didn’t produce will be marked 2017. This will keep things interesting because we also produced about 1700 fillets with 2017.

We work a crap load of hours and our sharpening guy probably got a little tired.

Reeds always hits us with big orders and always wants them yesterday so a few might have got by with less than perfect edges.

Like I said – I am going to have a chat with our guy to make sure it isn’t happening again.

Mwal, We also produce that sheath from scratch … It is my Wife’s primary job in our small family business. So thanks for the compliment.

Even the fillets that are not being produced by use will be in our sheaths.

We produced 1200 sheaths for them with out knives.

That is how I first found they were going to have knives produced elsewhere.

Can you take a picture of the knife an send it to me @ [email protected] ?

I know they were working on trying to increase their numbers by having some produced elsewhere … I am not sure if they ever got any of those out or not but I can tell the difference if I see it.

This has been my major concern with them adding an additional place of production … I don’t want to take the heat from work that isn’t even ours.

I have attached a picture of some of the knives that we DID NOT produce that are still official Leech Lake knives. They are supposed to be the exact same blades but the handles are machine produced and the sharpening is not up to par.

There may be one other color, Hawkeye (yellow & black) I believe, that I don’t have a picture of that one.

I will also have a chat with our sharpening guy here about this but I know he checks each knife on a paper when finished – on every knife he sharpens.

If it is a problem at our shop it will be resolved.

If anyone is the area of our shop in Marengo Iowa, you can always stop by here. We sharpen for free anytime and not just our products.

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Mwal, I am not sure which emails you tried but here are the emails to each of them that I know are good contacts.

Lisa Canney – [email protected]

Mike Canney – [email protected]

Keep in mind they both do have other jobs and may not be available immediately but they should respond to you.

If you have concerns you are also welcome to contact me at [email protected] and I will try to help resolve any issues.

To start with the Leech Lake knives are still made by us and are still ground and sharpened all by us totally free hand. There has been no intentional change in quality … our standards have always been to produce only the best.

I am curious as to how you are judging the edge? Did you cut with it? or are you going by the feel of a bur on the edge? Or the visible grind line on the edge?

We sharpen to around 1200 grit (16 micron) before buffing the fine edge to a razors edge. The final buffing can buff away the visible grind lines at the final edge and if this is what you are judging it by the odds are your knife is actually sharp but may not look like it.

It has been our experience that some people feel the edge and don’t feel a bur on the edge and consider it not sharp.

We have even had a few shipped to us by customers that didn’t feel the edge was good and when they arrived back to us we could literally shave our arms with them.

We are human and it is possible there was a problem with the sharpening but the person that does all of the sharpening on these knives (yes only 1 person does this) has been grinding and sharpening knives full time for over 34 years.

I always leave them alone. I consider them a live decoy. Last Spring I had a hen walk 2 nice 18 lb toms from about 150 yards away to right in front of my blind.

My profile pic is my 2nd season 21 lb tom from this spring shot at about 27 yards also hunted 4th season this spring and settled for a 10 lb jake. I hate leaving tags go unfilled and the turkeys where I hunt need thinned down.

I can’t wait for fall season.

We do have a retail store in Amana IA. Both of our buildings in Marengo are production and shipping so it is only by chance to catch us with finished products here that are not committed to an order.

I would warn about the http://www.mnfilletknife.com/ products. They are look alike to ours and Leech Lake knives but they didn’t copy the blade quality.