Cleaning fish

[wrongwayric]

Check this out! I tried this today down at the river just warming up for my trip. It actually works! Takes a tad bit of muscle and practice, took me 3 fish to get it right, but it does work.

http://www.upfishing.com/cleaning_catfish.html

The simple explanation, insert knife behind the head about even with the gills or just slightly forward, run down to the back bone then slide it to the tail section. Insert fingers in the gills or grab the head, break the backbone, pull down (bottom side of the fish) and pull the whole front part to the tail. This will pull all the skin/guts away along with the head and leave you with nothing but the meat and skeleton. You might need to do a little clean up in the belly area but most of it is gone.

I made fillets out of the 2 i did successfully and they were tasty.

P.S. Watch out for the stingers/fin horns! Them suckers hurt! Maybe i should have killed the fish first?

[DiabloTX]

Or you could just watch Office Space, learn how to clean fish and watch a good movie at the same time! 

[Jackal1]

.........................and then they invented the electric fillet knife.

[Curval]

I have a great fish cleaner...my wife.

[Leslie]

Will have to try that method Wrongwayric.  Have used pliers to skin catfish.  Don't like trying to filet catfish using a knife.  I end up wasting too much meat.  Even saltwater hard heads, which most people throw back, have a small amount of meat which is good to eat.  I'll sometimes keep a large one if nothing else is biting.


Les

[boxboy28]

kinda the same why i do trout, cept you gut it then cut under  the gill plate and pull it off the top sideinstead.

[AWMac]

Screw that... I just put them in a blender and hit the Puree button.

No mess, no fuss.

Don't sip it, chug it.

[Dago]

Toss them in the dishwasher with a little soap, and let the machine get them clean and shiny.

[Nilsen]

I have a great fish cleaner...my wife.

[bcadoo]

Screw that... I just put them in a blender and hit the Puree button.

No mess, no fuss.

Don't sip it, chug it.

Ahh...the super Bass-O-Matic '76

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3126958731905386014&q=bass-o-matic&ei=5hRUSMfEIpTqqgPDgrTzDg&hl=en

[AWMac]

Went thru 5 of them so far.

[Angus]

I've gutted some...well, I worked on a trawler 
Never saw this method, but might try it in the summer. I would think it only works on some fish or rather small fish.
BTW, a typical cod where I was fishing (N-Atlantic) would be some....15 lbs. And alive. We would  basically put it on the back, cut in infront of the gills, then open um the belly, first at the chest, then cut backwards.
If it was a female, we would gently remove the "eggs" (Caviar) into a seperate container, then simply tear out the rest.
End result is a fish with no life and no guts...

[wrongwayric]

Not sure if it will work on other fish but works pretty darn good on cat and bullhead fish. The larger the fish though the tougher it is to pull back and strip the skin. Mine were all around 9-10 inches and not to hard to do.
Pliers sux, and filleting as someone stated you have a tendency to lose meat.

[Angus]

hehe, no wonder that the fishermen don't do it with cod, - there you are dealing with some 25-40 inches
(and on board, working on a conveyer line, - oh Ford)

[Shaky]