Posted: 6/4/2010 4:23:32 PM EDT
| I googled and read up a bit on how to fillet a fish but I must be missing something. I have been bringing home 24"+ trout and thought it would be better to fillet them rather than just pick through the bones. Any pointers for this? I bought a very nice fillet knife. What is the smallest fish you would typically consider filleting? |
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Quoted:
I filleted bluegill and perch in the 1 lb range. Walleye in the 15" class. 24" trout is easy. Learn by doing is my advice. Seems like I am leaving a lot of back meat and chunks..am I trying to get every single bone? Do you just cut down the outside of the ribs or slice a grove & remove each bone? |
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Quoted: Quoted: I filleted bluegill and perch in the 1 lb range. Walleye in the 15" class. 24" trout is easy. Learn by doing is my advice. Seems like I am leaving a lot of back meat and chunks..am I trying to get every single bone? Do you just cut down the outside of the ribs or slice a grove & remove each bone? Outside the ribs. First cut as close to the backbone as you can and then make little slices working your way up and down the fish keeping as close to the ribs as you can. |
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Lots of practice.
Contact your local Conservation/DNR office and see if they have any lakes with an over abundance of panfish/sunfish/bluegill/brim. Usually the fish end up smaller, and the biologist would rather have you take home the smaller fish, so that the remainder of the population may grow bigger (less competition for food better genetics in the pool). Take home a limit or two of smaller fish and practice. You will be a pro in no time, and can eat some very tasty fish chips in the process. For trout, as one of the previous posters stated, I prefer just gutted, and remove the bones post cooking. |
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It all depends on the type of fish you are filleting.
If you insist on filleting trout, fillet it like a bass or bluegill. Some people cut through the rib cage and then cut it out later. I prefer to slice the meat away from the rib cage all in one step. Trout have pin bones that run along the top half of the fillet. The only way to get them out before cooking is to take a pair of needle nose pliers and pull them out one by one. |
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The trout lodge/"ranch" I go to has cleaners that can gut and fillet a trout in under 5 seconds each. It's an amazing thing to watch. They leave the rib meat and the backstrap intact and just cut out the spine and ribs.
I wouldn't be able to do it like that without a lot of practice, but they get tipped $1 a fish to do it, so they've got incentive to do as many as possible. Practice Practice Practice! |
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Make a diagonal cut from behind the head toward the bottom of the gills, not cutting into the gills. Turn the knife sideways and cut along the backbone through the ribs
and just above the centerline of the belly, cutting towards the tail. Do not slice through the tail, but get as close to it as you can without cutting through it. Flip the fillet (still barely attached to the tail) away from the head so it is skin side down. Starting at the tail end, slide your knife flat and cut between the meat and the skin, keeping as close to the skin as you can to not waste meat. Flip the fish over and fillet the other side. |
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This guy is way slow, but very good at explaining, ie..deliberate,,. an old hand would take maybe 40 seconds max to do that fish. An old hand.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzTFBQ07s3o  Lots of good videos to glean from
Teach a man to fish and all that.... if you get some big boys http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx4O3tuOqf4&feature=related someone here just got a 44 pounder,,, cut out the oil line if serving striper or salmon, first mark of an amateur chef,,,.. |