I usually skin some where between 20-30 coyotes a few fox, and a bobcat or two. Throw in a few elk, and a deer.
With that said, i have a pile of knives, and in the time I have been doing it, I have settled on a couple.
Skinning a deer or Elk is about wide swath passes and getting the hide off and saving the meat. I move faster, and don't care if i "nick" the hide.
The opposite is true with predators. I am a bit more careful, and "nicking" the hide is bad, and costs me either time or money. The hides are thin and I would say 1/16th" thick. I find that when skinning just one, it really doesn't matter what knife you use as long as it's sharp. Skin 2, 3, or 4 and things change. Your arms get tired from pulling and pushing, and your hands are slippery from the blood.
The cuts are as follows
Cut around the rear ankles, then run the blade up the legs along the color line to the vent, over the vent. Then do the same on the other rear leg and up and under the vent to connect to the other cut. pull the fur back on the legs, use the knife to get it started, and also run the knife down the tail from the vent (on the underside) a little (to make pulling the tail easier)
put the knife down. (this is where i think a magnet in the handle would be nice to stick to metal. (I skin from a metal pole that looks like a hangmans noose in the stinger of the truck)
I pull and pull to get the rear legs free, and loose around the tail area on the back. Pull the tail with a tail stripper. slit the tail down to the end tip.
Keep pulling. Jumping on it, pushing and so on to get it to the front shoulders. Once its' there i use a long screw driver to push through the arm pit (doesn't make a hole in the hide) and then use that to free the front leg. (i also cut the front legs off at the first joint above the dew claw.
Keep pulling and pushing.
Now, i use the knife to skin down the ears a bit to expose the cartilage (makes pulling it out later easier) Then cut off the ears, and pull somemore, until you get to the eye's. You skin down until you can see the eye's on both sides and then cut them free and pull some more. THen cut across the bottom of the chin midway down the lower jaw. Cut the fur free from around the mouth and keep pulling until you get to the nose and then carfully knife around the nose until the tip, and slice off. done..
Now the work starts.. lol putting up furs is different knifes and work.
Here is a video of the way i do it.
What do i like. I like the short blade, it's easy to control. I like a rounded nose so i don't nick the hide. I like the handle to not get slippery after my hands get bloody. (blow a hole in a hide and your hands are going to be slippery)
I use the KOA Muskrat, it's sharp and stays sharp through days of use without resharpening. Being able to skin 5-8 coyotes in a weekend when out hunting without sharpening makes life better. The rounded nose helps keep that blade against the hide and limit fleshing when the hide won't pull off and needs knife work.
I also have another knife (like the one in the video) that i use to cut the initial cuts and cut off the feet and around the eye's. Between those two knifes and a tail stripper is what i use.