With knives, either cooking or butchering, you can't have best of both worlds. By that I mean, you can't have one that is easy to sharpen AND hold a sharp edge for a long time. Most knives nowadays consist of a carbon/stainless blend OR all stainless.
Carbon blended knives are easy to sharpen, but won't hold an edge as long as a straight stainless knife will. On the other hand, stainless is so hard, that when one needs to sharpen it, its a pain in the butt for most people.
I always go with a carbon blend and a nice packable honing stone. Let me tell you why. On a large deer or elk, you WILL need to sharpen a knife more than once anyway. Since I'm out in the field, I would prefer not to mess around and get the edge I need, right away. So I have to sharpen it a few more times than stainless...so what? I get a razor sharp edge to work with. A sharp edge is safer and more efficient than a dull edge.
Another thing, try to get a fixed blade setup. That means, not a folding knife. I tend to feel like the blade can fold on my fingers during rough work. I say this while I use a folding Browning knife. (nice blade on these BTW)
Another note. Stay away from these fancy gut hook knives for elk. The hooks you need for elk are HUGE in comparison to the deer gut hooks. You will know when you see em which ones they are.
Hope this helps!
I concur with noharley and second the Knives of Alaska blades.
Chef
"I Love Animals...They're Delicious!"