I had a pitchfork on my back for quite a while. I also had it linked to slot #1 of the hotbar. At one point, I found that I could no longer take the pitchfork into my hands, either by using the hotbar, or by manually dragging it. I had not picked up an alternate melee weapon in the interim.
After a server re-start, the pitchfork was no longer displayed in my inventory.
??? Unknown
It is possible that the pitchfork disappeared when I climbed a deer stand, even though the slot on my back was available and the animation played showing my character "shouldering" the implement.
When I realized that the pitchfork was unresponsive, I suspected then that it had left my inventory, so I went back to the deer stand to see if the pitchfork lay there on the ground. I found nothing.
Hello BleedoutBill and thank you for the report.
This is an issue we are aware of (#0024793) and it has been scheduled for a fix.
Regards,
Geez