[Music Playing]
Hi folks! It's Ivo here from Thundermist Lure Company. Our viewers have been writing in recently asking us to give a demonstration on how to clean catfish. So today, we'd like to show you exactly that.
Okay, so what we have here, we have about a 12 pound Channel cat that Claudio is going to demonstrate how to filet this fish. Actually, with a fish this large, you have the option of cutting into steaks rather than fileting. So you can actually take a knife and cut them into nice slice steaks if you like. But for today's purposes we're going to show you how to filet this catfish. You don't need any special tools, pliers or anything of that nature, all you need is one sharp filet knife.
It should be noted that, catfish have a lot of flavor in the skin, so ideally, you don't even want to remove the skin. But if you want to leave the skin on, you should remove the slime. So Claudio can show us here what do you want to do to remove the slime as you want to scrape that skin right down until there is no slime left. You want to do that for the entire fish. If you try to wash that slime off in the sink, it just simply won't work. You have to actually get a knife, in this case, it's a dollar knife. Just keep sliding back and forth and you can see the amount of slime that Claudio has removed there.
Okay, so let's get started. So this fish is actually similar to a trout, in the way the bone structure is. It has one bone right up in the middle and then it has a bone around the ribcage. So, Claudio is going to make an incision there, just behind the head, and he's going to begin the process right down to the ribcage. This one actually has a big belly, and I should mention, there is a lot of meat in the belly, as Claudio is now cutting right along that backbone. So you want to cut right along that backbone towards the tail fin.
With that belly meat, we're going to leave that belly meat on the fish. A fish of this size, there's a lot of fat that accumulates in that belly. If there is any contaminants in the water that you're fishing, those contaminants are going to be found in the fat, which typically would be in the belly. So for today's purposes, we're going to leave that belly meat there, but you, of course, can do as you wish.
So Claudio has been running his knife along that backbone, and he's continuing to run right along that backbone. You'll also notice, the fish of this size, he has him on his belly, it's easier to work this catfish of this size by leaving him on his belly. You cut right behind the head, like so. When you get to the ribcage, what you're going to do is you're going to cut around the ribcage. So keep working the knife along the bones and you'll be able to feel them as you continue working the fillet. You would be able to feel those bones, and you just run your knife along those bones.
So you could see that he is going right around the ribcage and right to the tail end, along the backbone. The beauty of that fillet is there will be absolutely no bones in that filet, that's a solid meat. You see, he's left the fillet attached to the fish. By doing that, he can now run the knife between the skin and the meat. It's easy to hold that way. Now some people will use a fork on a board or something of that nature, but if you leave it on the fish, it will hold it there, get you started, and then you can just continue with your hand and continue removing the skin.
There you have, you're just finishing up here. You have one completely boneless fillet. That's now ready for washing, ready for the frying pan. If you wanted to, you can -- if you notice a fish, a filet of this size, you can also remove, there is some more fat on that. You could see, because the filet is discolored and there is also that dark muscle meat. So if you want, you can remove that dark muscle meat. It's just a thin layer right under the skin as you could see there, and you remove that dark muscle meat and you're removing some meat that's maybe not necessary the best tasting.
That's about it folks, it's that simple. You do the same thing to the other side, and you have two nice boneless Channel cat fillets. So until next time folks, I wish you all the best, best of luck under water, and good luck fileting!
One last thing folks, don't forget to subscribe to our videos by clicking on the button most likely found right over here, as we have a lot more fish catching action coming your way. And if you haven't yet, be sure to check out our website at ThundermistFishingTips.com as we have a lot more articles there and fish catching advice for you. So until next time, good luck to good fishing.
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