How to Filet a Channel Catfish
Channel catfish are coveted by many anglers because they're easy to catch and delicious to eat, according to Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. Channels have deeply forked tails, whiskers around their mouth and dark spots on the body. Fillet the meat from the bones before cooking to better enjoy the mild flavor and firm, flaky texture.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Place the channel catfish on the cutting board. Position the fillet knife just behind the catfish's gill cover and cut downwards toward the vertebrae. Use a sharp fillet knife to make clean, neat incisions along the fish meat.
-
2
Position the knife back to the starting point and then slice parallel along the channel's backbone and ribs toward the fish tail. If the channel has a big belly, you can cut around it and leave it behind, because of the excess fat and water contaminants that may be present.
-
-
3
Flip the detached meat over and lay flat so that the skin is down.
-
4
Run the fillet knife between the firm skin of the catfish and the meat. This removes the skin from the meat. If you want to keep the skin, simply cut off the fillet from the tail.
-
5
Repeat steps 1 to 4 to filet the other side.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
If you want to keep the skin, remove slime from the catfish scales by using a knife to scrape throughout the body.
Use a power or electric fish fillet knife for a stronger, more consistent, and faster, blade action. This is especially useful when filleting a lot of fish.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/liquidlibrary/Getty Images
