Fish cleaning yesterday

[RUGER]

Long story short I had 98 bream 1 catfish and 1 yellow bass to clean yesterday.
My buddy has never cleaned a fish in his life and he was going to help me.
I have a pretty efficient system worked out as I normally, 99% of the time, am doing it alone.
I gave him a regular fillet knife and showed him how to cut the ribs out and clean the edges of the funk that I leave on.

He asked how long it would take to clean 100 fish and I told him 50 minutes.
I have figured out that I can get all my crap out, fillet the fish and put everything up and it averages out to 30 seconds per fish.
This does not include disposing of the bucket of carcasses.

Having someone help makes more of a difference because we finished yesterday with all of them in 35 minutes flat.
I thought that was pretty good.

 

[waynesworld]

Real good as it took me longer to do three cats and 2 bream this weekend. Was wondering do you use electric knife I am going to get one this week and was looking at a few. I want a good one and like the option of different blades. Any suggestion?

 

[RUGER]

Real good as it took me longer to do three cats and 2 bream this weekend. Was wondering do you use electric knife I am going to get one this week and was looking at a few. I want a good one and like the option of different blades. Any suggestion?

I only use an electric knife.
I tried a few and for whatever reason I fell in love with the Rapala.
Most people I talked to did not like it due to the handle being alot larger than most. For whatever reason I like it better due to the larger handle.
It is pricey, last one I bought was $40 at wal-mart but they last 5 or 6 years. I am on my second one now.
You can get different length blades. My favorite for bream is the 6".

Funny story.
The last one I had the blades seem to be getting dull so I started looking and couldn't find a set of 6" blades anywhere so I emailed Rapala and asked about it.
They replied that their blades are designed to remain sharp for the life of the knife and there was no need in buying replacement blades.
I thought well huh, bite me too.

True story, the VERY NEXT time I cleaned fish my knife literally burned up in my hand.

Guess they were about right.

OH and on the catfish, I skinned it and cut it into steaks.
Catfish are the hardest for me to try and fillet for some reason.
JohnnyBond taught me how to skin one.
Takes not much longer than filleting a bream.

 

[waynesworld]

Thanks, I am going to try to do cats with electric saw a guy doing them in less then 15 sec a cat. I for some reason can not skin them fast have gotten old and cant remember how we use to do it. We use to skin 100 bullheads a night.

 

[WTM]

not bad at all. the best thing about cleaning bluegills vs crappie, catfish, etc. i dont smell like ive put in a 12 hour shift at Quillens fish market.

 

[RUGER]

not bad at all. the best thing about cleaning bluegills vs crappie, catfish, etc. i dont smell like ive put in a 12 hour shift at Quillens fish market.

I have incorporated latex gloves and now the smell is virtually non-existent.
Actually helps me grip the fish / fillets better too.

 

[WTM]

I have incorporated latex gloves and now the smell is virtually non-existent.
Actually helps me grip the fish / fillets better too.

yeah me too but whenever i filet crappie or catfish the smell gets all in my clothes, hair, etc.

for some reason bluegill dont have that fishy smell to them even when i scale them on the bone.