How to Clean Pan Fish

How to fillet a pan fish

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• fillet knife

1. Take your fillet knife and start cutting straight down behind the fish' s head until you feel the spine, then turn knife sideways and cut along spine towards the tail until that side of the fish is removed, if there are any fins attached just cut them off. There not very tasty.

2. Remove the rib cage area, it should be visible, you will need to get the knife behind the bones and start slicing from the top down to the bottom of its skin. Feel the fillet for bones and make sure that they are all removed.

3. Then press your knife flat against fish' s skin starting at the tail and slice the remaining meat off the skin, leaving you with a nice little fillet of pan fish. I usually leave my fillets in a bowl of salt water overnight in the refrigerator, and freeze the following day.

Tips & Warnings

• put newspaper down on your fish cleaning area for easy clean up
• if you have a garden you can bury fish scraps into it for fertilization
• there are fish cleaning boards you can purchase at sporting goods stores that will hold the fish in place for you
• Fillet knives are very sharp always use caution when using them