# Filet Knives & Cleaning Panfish



## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

DH and I have permission - actually, we are being encouraged - to fish out the sunfish in our neighbor's pond. There are THOUSANDS of them, and they haven't been thinned out in years; the bass can't keep up and the neighbors don't fish. Yesterday, DH and I went over there to fish for the first time, and it was almost like the fish-in-a-barrel thing: they're hand-fed on a regular basis, so we just used bread bits and were pulling them out faster than we could get them off the hooks!

We toted home 35 sunnies, and, after putting them on ice for a bit, I got out the filet knife that a buddy of DH gave him and began to work on fileting them. I've never been a great fileter - never had a lot of practice and always had my dad there for guidance the couple of times I did do it. 

What a mess! I know that part of the problem was my lack of experience. But I wonder about that knife...

The knife I always used with dad was a thin-bladed, flexible thing, which I think really helped when working around the ribs and taking off the skin. The knife we were given has almost NO flex to it, whatsoever. Huh? Should I go out and get a different knife, or am I just making excuses for my poor panfish-cleaning skills?

I got so frustrated that, despite the fact that I hate picking over a fish for bones, I finally gave up and just removed heads, tails, guts, fins and scales and froze them that way. It was taking way to long to filet them and I was losing so much meat. The filets I did get look like they were cut off with a chainsaw; made me embarrassed to call myself a Minnesotan. 

Sorry for the ramble. Let me sum up my questions:
1. What is up with that inflexible filet knife? Was it designed for larger fish? Should I bother using it for panfish?
2. At what point is it just not worth bothering fileting sunnies? 4"? 5"?
3. I baked one of the non-fileted fish last night, and it was good, but had bones in unexpected places. I hate bones in my fish! Should I not have cut off those fins? (Top and bottom.)
4. When I was still trying to filet, there was often a line of small bones running front to back of the filet just above the ribs - what are those? Am I inadvertantly cutting into the spine bones a little? I try to run the knife as close to the spine as possible but not cut through it...

Thank you in advance for your help!!!
Diana, the Frustrated Fileter :help:


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## augila (Jul 16, 2006)

An electric knife works great, or you could go to Wal Mart and buy a Rapala 4 in. fillet knife. Usually on small pan fish it is best to scale, dehead, cut 3 or 4 lines across the body on each side and fry crisp. You can also bake them and then take a fork and lift the meat off of the backbone. No other fish tastes as good as panfish IMO


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## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

Thank you, Augila. Is the Rapala flexible? I've heard a lot of good things about electric knives, but there's just something about them that stops me from wanting one. I guess there's something about catching one's own dinner and cleaning it with a regular knife, simply and quietly, that an electric one would take away. :shrug: 'Course, I might find myself getting over that real quick if we keep fishing in this pond to put some in the freezer for the winter!

We were pulling out a lot of average-sized sunnies yesterday, probably 5-7" for most of them. Some smaller, a few larger.

I agree that fresh panfish are some of the best fish out there! That's why I really want to learn to do this right so I can take advantage of this opportunity.


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

Heres how we fix bluegills. Those hand size or larger,scale both sides,cut straight down behind each gill and run knife along back bone to tail,turn over and do other side. No bones. Smaller ones, scale both side, then cut off head just behind gills, then make a v cut to cut out anal vent, then cut straight up to where the bottom of gills were, then clean out cavity. We always leave the tails on the smaller fish because when fried, thats the best part of the fish. Just try one and you will agree. Now cut gashes along both sides about a quarter inch apart all the way to the tail, but don't cut through the back bone. Fill a fry pan about half full of grease, we use lard, and while the grease is heating up , put white cornmeal in bowl, salt both sides of fish and roll in cornmeal and put in hot grease. Fry till they are golden brown and when you press them aganist the bottom of fry pan with fork until the sound of the frying dose'nt change. We take them out and place on cake rack to drain excess grease. When you eat the fish, those gashes will be bone free and you will end up with a fish skeleton, minus head which you threw away and tail which you will swear is the best fish you ever tasted. Give the skeleton to the cat and reach for another, and another,ect.ect. YOU ARE WELCOME! Eddie


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## jross (Sep 3, 2006)

I use a flexible fillet knife by Cutco of Olean, New York. It adjusts from 8 to 10 inches or so, holds an edge and has a comfortable handle. It has a notch in the sheath for cutting line and a hook sharpener which I used a lot last Monday when I got into a bluefish blitz. It is expensive at $55, but takes saltwater well, and mine is about ten years old. I would buy another in a minute. I filleted the three blues I kept in about 3 minutes, the blade flexing over the bones. Then I slid the blade between the skin and the meat, pulling the skin under the blade separating the meat from the skin.


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## JJ Grandits (Nov 10, 2002)

Really small sunnies might not be worth the trouble to fillet. We would take the small ones and use them to fertilize the garden. If you are going to fish out a pond you should be taking more than 35 fish at a time.


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## Guest (Oct 1, 2007)

I rarely catch bluegills big enough to fillet. Skin them instead of filleting them is the trick. Take a nice small sharp pocket knife and make a slit right behind the gills from top to bottom on both sides and then a slit from front to tail on top and bottom. Then use a pair of pliers and peel the skin off both sides. Then gut and dehead and you have a nice peice of fish to fry up. 

If you can find one, purchase yourself a perch trap or two. I don't have one but a cuz of mine has one and he catches the sunfish with those like you wouldn't believe. He uses them for catfish bait.


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## Phantomfyre (Jul 1, 2004)

JJ Grandits said:


> If you are going to fish out a pond you should be taking more than 35 fish at a time.


I know, but we only had a few minutes to fish and thought we'd see how it went. And I doubt the two of us are really going to be able to do a proper job of fishing out those sunnies, but something is better than nothing!

augila and Eddie, I'll have to try frying them up like that, but I have a question: if I'm going to freeze them, should I make the slits in the side before I freeze or after I thaw them before I cook them? (Thank you for the detailed instructions, Eddie - they had my mouth watering!)

Turns out DH had a second filet knife stashed that I didn't know about that has some flex to it, so I will try that one and see if it helps.

r.h. - I'll have to try the pocketknife thing, too. A short knife like that sounds eaiser to control, especially on smaller fish like sunnies.

It'd be nice to eat the smaller ones, too, but they are a lot of work. In any case, we're not letting anything go to waste - what doesn't get eaten gets buried in the garden. 

Thanks again, everyone!


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## EDDIE BUCK (Jul 17, 2005)

I think either way gashing before or after freezing. Don't know how you freeze fish, and not trying to tell you what to do, but we cut the top off of a gallon milk jug and wash it real good and fill it with fish up to about two inches from top, then fill with water one inch over fish. They will never taste freezer burned and will always taste like you just caughtum. (think I'll go dig a few worms) LOL


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## Hooligan (Jul 18, 2007)

One more cleaning method...

Cut a bit more then half-way through the body just behind the gills.

Slice through skin on each side of dorsal fin to tail.

Peel skin back a bit on each side at the top then grab the flopping head and pull it and skin and guts away in one motion.

I usually cut the bellies off too, especially on the smaller ones.

Once you pan fry the fish the slabs of meat will fall off the spine.


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2007)

It'd be nice to eat the smaller ones, too, but they are a lot of work. In any case, we're not letting anything go to waste - what doesn't get eaten gets buried in the garden. 

Thanks again, everyone![/QUOTE]


You can eat the smaller ones too. Fix them skin on or off as mentioned above and then can them in a pressure canner. It'll put those store bought mackeral patties to shame!


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## CoonXpress (Sep 20, 2004)

For hand sized panfish, I prefer to use a stiff fixed blade.
It gives me more control over the blade tip.
I have an Old Timer SharpFinger that I use for them.








Will


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## sniper69 (Sep 23, 2007)

I filet panfish and use a rapala knife (like the ones sold at walmart/kmart/etc.). I got into the habit of fileting them when i was a youngster. the way to get awesome filets is to keep practicing. Soak the filets in some cold water with a dash of salt, pull out of the water and pat dry, dip into an egg/milk mixture and then put into some crushed cracker crumbs. Deep fry and enjoy. Gosh now I'm getting hungry.     

If freezing the filets - as previously mentioned put them into water and then freeze.


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