Filleting a fish

[Ketchn]

I use both, depends on what's being cleaned.

A bunch of walleye, electric knife and fillet knives to trim.
A pile of perch, bearpaw scaler electric knife and fillet knives to trim
Crappie, fillet knife
bluegill sometimes I scale them other times I skin them and I always use a fillet knife on them.

My favorite fillet knife is a birch handled Rapala with a 4 inch blade

i have one of those Rapala knives in the kitchen drawer myself , not even sure exactly how old it is but if memory serves me well around 40 or so years .

[hdhntr]

I am very good with the electric and leave the carcasses thin to the bone so it's my preferred but do the occasional small batch with the rapala. depends on how many for me and yes can go thru a couple of limits in good time with great results.

[Ranger R61]

Old school. Have 3 knives one is close to 50 years old. My wife is learning to clean the fish and tries her best to get the most meat possible. She is slow but getting better. Some day I will retire and let her have it. Hope not for a couple more years (be 83 next month).

[stormcloud]

Don't think fish don't get mangled by filet knives in the hands of an inexperienced angler or trying to filet with a dull knife. I say to each his own. Not up to
me to tell him or her how they should or should not be doing things unless they ask for advise.

[kyfishman]

I clean fish both ways, but usually opt for the electric knife. I can use it just as effectively as a regular knife and a whole lot quicker. I guess it's just whatever a person likes.

[forrest r]

Old school here, but I don't catch piles of fish. Electric knives make great re-gifts though

Too bad.

We used to take a bunch of people and pile them in a boat (8 to 10 people) and go out perching. At 30 fish per person limit it didn't take long to get a pile of fish to clean.

Most of the time we'd use a bearpaw scaler and someone that was good with it could scale 2 fish a minute. The perch would get scaled and slid down the cleaning table to a guy running an electric knife. From there the perch got dressed by hand with small fillet knives.

The scaler was the slow part, but perch are down right tasty with the skin left on. 2 fish a minute sounds fast but when you're cleaning 300 perch that 2 1/2 hours.

If we would just run the electric knife it could do 3 fish a minute. Put an electric knife in the scalers hand also and you're cleaning 6 fish a minute or 1/2 hour for 300 perch.

Walleye are the same way, start filling 8 to 10 tickets (6 fish limit per person) with an electric knife. They'll be done in 30 to 40 minutes. That's including double filleting the larger walleye.

Anymore I go out walleye'ing with 4 to 5 people, you get off the water quicker and if it takes more than 20 minutes to clean the fish. More beer than fish were being handled.

[DonaAna1]

When my Grandmother was still alive. I would scale and gut crappie for her. She would not eat a crappie that didn't have on his pajamas (skin). She even had a special knife for me to use. She gave me that knife a couple of years before she passed. I still have the knife and every once in a while I will gut and scale a mess of crappie. And she was right, they taste better with their pajamas.
This is the make and model of knife she used.
KABAR VINTAGE FISH FILET KNIFE MIB

[arkcrappie]

I am an old school manual knife guy. The main reason is I like the meat that is over the ribs and I can get every bit of it with a manual knife.

[Ketchn]

BTW did anyone mention the pretty much disgusting fish guts and poo poo and etc all over the fillets and table and hands ?....inquiring minds thing
here we go again yawl

[trypman1]

A good thread, thanks- I use both but prefer the knife. I also fry the backbones, if I leave to much, it is very good.