I've gotta give kudos to Darrel, I'm not the easiest person to work with when it comes to something custom like this. 
I'll get something in my head as far as what I want, and usually there isn't a whole lot that's going to change it. I'm weird like that, but I'm willing to pay the money to get what I want, otherwise if I don't get what I want, I'm never happy with it. 
So needless to say, I'm happy with this knife. 
I think Darrel has the patience of a Saint. He and I went back and forth for about 2 weeks I think through email working out the details on this thing. In thinking up and decided on what I wanted, I went through several years worth of posts in the Classified section looking at pictures of knives that Darrel had made, as well as the ones that he has on Boo's site, looking at the woods, blade materials, blade designs, etc. I also took a bunch of the custom knives that I've got and looked at the features I liked the best, blade features, measured the blade lengths, handle lengths, handle widths, etc. As I said, I'm kinda' weird about custom stuff like that. So to start it off, here's the first DaGriz Custom I got. This one was the "Dark Big Boy" that Darrel had listed in the Classified section. This was the one that I had pictured with deer blood on it that worked on the doe I got opening day.
After I got the one above, that kind of whetted my appetite for another DaGriz Custom. That led to this second one. After going through all of the pictures I could find of Darrel's knives, I only found 1 made out of the Oden's Eye Damascus. That pattern just struck me as really cool, so I had to have it!
Going through the different types of wood, it was a toss-up between Buckeye Burl or Box Elder Burl that I liked the best. Since I already have a custom knife with Buckeye Burl, I decided to go with the Box Elder Burl. Darrel sent me some pictures of several different kinds to choose from and I picked one that had a really cool red stripe in it. The problem was, where the stripe was and the length of the handles, it was going to be a challenge to get the red on the actual finished knife. When I got it today, I noticed that Darrel was able to get the red on there. With really pretty wood like that, I don't like the looks of the pins distracting from the wood, so I had him hide the pins (a royal P.I.T.A.). I've got big 'ol meaty gorilla hands, so I need a knife with just a little bigger and fatter handles for it to feel right in my hands. Darrel was able to do this too. Another little feature that I've got on some other custom knives that I really like is a little dip up on the top of the blade at the back of the handle for my thumb to fit into. To me, it just feels better when I'm using it. I had Darrel add in some cross-hatch marks in there for a little "grip". So below is the finished product.
Now we'll see if i can christen it with some deer blood on Saturday.
