well my wife is Thai they dont believe in wasting anything My mother in-Law just move here a few months go she wont waist anything either on them I still think filleting take longer even with my eltric knife I can skin gut and snap the head off in about a minet

Chem,when I was a kid all I knew about was creek or pond BullHeads we never skined them we just poured boiling water on them and scraped the slim off them leaving a thin white layer of skin.

Take a large nail or even a good ice pick and stick them (right between the eyes) to a fence post or tree . I've used the skinners but a good pair of pliers or channel locks work just as well . I'm pretty good with a fillet knife ( never had an electric ) but I don't usually fillet catfish . They just don't seem to have all the small bones found in other species .

I tried cooking one with the skin on ..... once . Just didn't work for me .

I've started using a Bubba Blade 9" stiffie. Makes going through the ribs a breeze, and cuts super close to the backbone. Very little is left on the bones. I haven't decided whether I like using that to cut the skin of vs a normal fillet knife though. It's really nice on those larger cats. I still use the smaller fillet knife for more more precise work.

For channelcat, a good sharp pocket knife and a pair of skinning pliers, practice to do three a minute. Don't take long to clean a mess!

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All I use is a filet knife. Takes me about 30-40 seconds a fish on eaters. Flatheads are the only reason I'd bust out the skinners. Not sure I've seen anyone clean fish faster than DEERSTRANGLER. Dude is surgical with a Dexter.

Phil King holds the catfish cleaning world record time 11.03 seconds in 2000. I have fished with him and he can whip them out, catching and cleaning.


http://h2ow.com/catfish/catfish_cleaning.html

I generally skin. The small ones that are a foot or so long get deep fried whole and the bigger ones get cut into steaks. I don't generally keep the ones over 15 lbs but those I do filet after I skin them.

Skinning pliers are good but just regular pliers work fine too. I like a small razor sharp knife for skinning and then use a cleaver for the heads. I use a commercial grade boning knife for filets on cats and go electric for scaled fish.

for skinning i use a straight razor I have and older one that i dropped and chipped the front corner on , When i got out of the Army I went to barber school. But the wife said no your not going to work just stay home you make enough money just take care of your self so now shave with a straight razor and after i chipped that one i though what can i do with it . one day my knife was dull so i thought what can i use popped in my head that old straight razor it takes and keeps an edge well works great for cleaning and skinning and when you have to skin the larger fishing it is easy to cut the skin in to strips for skinning. you can get a decent razor off eBay for about 15-$25 if you dont have ths stones then i wouldn't bother the ones i have cost me 125$ each and i have 6 of them from 400gt to 12000ft and a 200$ strop with chromite past