what is the best way to fillet crappie? i seem to loose alot of the meat around the shoulder so i was wondering if any of you guys have any tips.

If you kinda follow the gills around and up the "shoulder", then you should be ok.

yep & make sure and run it down the leg too!

i like to let them sit in some ice for a short period before cleaning to firm up the meat a little and then follow Jerky's way

For those of you that like to eat them whole, throw them in a cooler full of ice and then pour in a regular size bottle of vinegar. Let sit for about an hour and then pull them out and rinse the scales off with a hose. So easy and the vinegar does not taint the meat at all.

On big fish I will take another cut along the shoulder to get that piece of meat above the spine. It can be a nice piece of meat by itself on a strong fish.

During your initial knife cut near the gill of the fish, you need to get the blade of your knife (I use electric)down to the spine of the fish before you start cutting through the ribs (shoulder) area of the fish. Make sure your blade is parallel with the spine of the fish so that you can get as much flesh of the fish in this thick area away from the spine. The more parralel your blade is to the spine of the fish the less flesh you should waste. Beware that if your blades are real sharp and you bear down too hard during your initial cut near the gills, you can cut completely through the spine and then you'll have more of a chore on hand to clean your fish. With time you'll develop a "feel" for how far down your initial cut needs to be in order to be parallel with the spine of the fish.

Each person has their favorite fillet knife, but I like using ones with a flat blade (such as Mr. Twister). For me, the flat blade makes it easier to stay parallel to the backbone and save more meat.

Once the initial cut to the backbone is made and the blade turned parallel, I use a slight forward and backward movement with just a little left to right pressure and let the electric blade do the majority work. When you force the blade is when you lose meat, cut through the back, or cut through the skin at the end of the tail, etc. Then you have the chore of salvaging the fillet.