Some collaborations are about broad reach. This one is not. This is for the collectors. The Benchmade x Abel® Mini Adira® collaboration brings together a knife maker and a fly reel maker, and adds a third element that changes the equation: an artist whose entire career has grown out of an obsession with fish, fishing, and the water. Limited to 250 pieces, it is built for the kind of collector who sees their gear as something worth telling a story about.
Meet the Artist: Derek DeYoung
DeYoung's relationship with water started before he ever picked up a brush. "I grew up on a little bayou in West Michigan, and I always tell people Huck Finn didn't have anything on my childhood," he says. That connection followed him into art almost by accident. Every project in school somehow became about fish, and the obsession never left. Years of barely selling a painting turned around almost overnight after a move to Livingston, Montana, where he went from struggling to sell a single piece to being booked solid a year out. He has painted fish, nearly exclusively, ever since.
Full Circle: Derek & Benchmade
For DeYoung, this collaboration is not just professional. It closes a loop that started decades ago. “I was proud to show Tom a couple of Benchmades I bought when I was literally a young kid. I saved my money to get them, and I still have them today,” he says.
While working at a sporting goods store in West Michigan, DeYoung used to spend time admiring the knives in the Benchmade case. When one finally went on sale, he tracked down the last one in inventory and bought it for himself. Years later, the connection feels even more fitting because knives had already been part of his creative imagination. “I used to design knives all the time, and I’d always somehow try to make them like a fish, with a fish in the handle or etched into the blade,” he says. “Looking back at those sketches from when I was 17 or 18 years old, you’d never think that was going to happen one day.”
The Artwork: Brown Trout Flank
The knife carries DeYoung’s Brown Trout Flank design, one of his most popular pieces licensed to Abel®. Abel®’s art team has worked with DeYoung’s designs for years, and that familiarity made the translation onto the Mini Adira® relatively direct. “You’d think there was quite a process involved, but the reality is Abel® has worked with my work for so long and is so comfortable with it that they placed it the way they wanted,” DeYoung explains. “They used one of the more popular designs I’ve licensed to them, sent it to me, and asked what I thought. I said, ‘Oh my god, it’s freaking perfect.’”
It is worth noting that DeYoung does not paint the knife by hand. Abel®’s team applies his licensed artwork through its anodizing and hand-finishing process, while DeYoung provides the artwork and guidance needed to translate it accurately onto the product. He describes the role as similar to other unconventional projects he has worked on: the artwork originates with him, while a specialized team handles the final application.
Two American Craft Houses, One Knife
Abel® is not a casual name to attach to a collaboration like this. The brand has built a strong reputation in fly fishing for precision machining, distinctive anodizing, and reels that appeal as much to collectors as they do to serious anglers. Pairing that reputation with Benchmade’s own history in American knife design and manufacturing gives this collaboration something rarer than most co-branded releases: two companies from different categories, both shaped by a strong culture of precision and craft, meeting in the middle on a single object.
What's in the Collaboration
The 18065BK-ABEL2 Mini Adira® pairs DeYoung's Brown Trout Flank artwork with a Damasteel® Monarch-pattern blade finished in black DLC and an Abel® drag-knob lanyard bead, a detail drawn directly from Abel® reel design. Limited to just 250 pieces, each one brings the performance foundation of the Mini Adira® into a distinctly collector-focused release.
Built to Be Carried, Not Just Collected
DeYoung has strong feelings about what happens to a piece like this after it sells. "I think the most special ones are the ones that get used, not the ones that sat in a display case their whole life," he says. "For someone to buy this, really have it on them for 15 or 20 years, and then hand it down, I think that's about as cool as it gets."
Giving Back: Project Healing Waters
This collaboration also supports Project Healing Waters. This nonprofit uses fly fishing and related activities to support the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active-duty military service members and veterans.
Abel® has supported the organization for well over a decade, including a previous custom-anodized reel created specifically to benefit the cause. Benchmade joins that effort with this collaboration, continuing a shared commitment to the veterans Project Healing Waters serves.
Read more about the organization's mission and the veterans it supports.
The Crown Jewel
DeYoung's own reaction to the finished knife captures the tone of the release better than any product description could. Asked what he hopes someone feels the first time they pick it up, he said he wants them to examine the artwork, flick the blade open, and think, "This is the crown jewel of my collection." Then he added, "It is of mine."
Explore the Benchmade x Abel® Mini Adira®