Catfish cleaning Methods ?

[TOMLESCOEQUIP]

Went to the lake yesterday fishing with the family.

(yes I know it was Mothers day !! SHE suggested it !!)

In addition to pulling in some nice crappies & about a million bluegill, we caught 2 small catfish, around 2# each.

My son wanted to take them home & eat them, but having never a desire to eat cats, I don't really know the best cleaning method.

What's a good quick & perferably easy method of skinning & filleting these ??

What do you need to do in regard to any different preparation methods ??

Thanks........Tom

 

[wushaw]

Pliers for pulling skin and fillet knife for fillets.
Catfish is good eating.

 

[RobS]

Don't forget the sidecuts to remove the dorsal fin spike, will save much fowl language during the rest of the cleaning process! (Don't ask how I learned that trick)

 

[weldingisfun]

There is nothing better than deep fried catfish and hush puppies with an ice cold adult beverage.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Pliers for pulling skin and fillet knife for fillets.
Catfish is good eating.

Thats the way we do it.

I can remember when I was a boy my dad taking me catfishing with a telephone . We would have a net full in no time. Now that was 35 years ago and I would not try that now. Then, I did not know it was against the law.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

 

[DocHeb]

The faster you cranked, the faster you fished.

 

[Bird]

I never actually saw anyone do it, but I heard a lot about fishing with the old telephone (and I'm old enough to remember when we had a hand cranked telephone). For cleaning catfish, this site has some pretty good information. It's about the way I do it, as far as the skinning and filleting, but not the killing with the wire. I use a knife to the brain.

But when I was a kid, I didn't know anyone who had ever heard of "filleting" fish. For other kinds of fish, we scaled them (scraped the scales off), cut the heads off, split the belly to clean out the innards, and fried the smaller ones whole, but did split the larger ones in two. All of them were fried with the bones still in. And for catfish, Dad would get a good grip on them with regular pliers; lower part stuck in their mouth, top clamped down on top of their head, then he'd stick a sharp pointed knife in their head (brain) to kill them. He would dip them into a big pot of boiling water, then hold them out while Mother wiped them firmly and thoroughly with a towel. Dad would then cut the head off and gut them, and they were fried with the skin on. And I haven't seen anyone clean a catfish that way now in more than 50 years.

 

[Tig]

Great site, Bird.

 

[Cliff_Johns]

We always nailed the head to a board to lock them down, made a cut through the skin just below the head, then used a pliers to pull the skin off from the head toward the tail. Seemed to work quite well.

Cliff

 

[pappy19]

For the larger cats, say 5lbs and over, I always make a cut on the underside just in front of the tail. That cuts the major artery and it will bleed them out, killing them and also makes them taste better when bled out, especially the very large ones.