Remembering when I was a kid all we ever did was gut and scale (or skin!) fish. Never ever filleted fish. And it was all fried. But that was back when we plucked our dove and quail, too! Too much waste if you just breasted them out. Comments?

Filleting is faster and easier on most pan fish. There are also less bones to deal with.

filets are better

I’d have to be starving to fry and eat a whole fish. Too much trouble cleaning and eating.

Time and a place for everything, but once I got used to my electric fillet knife, I’m not going back.

Us too quisdraw. Back in the day.

Growing up my grandad always gutted and scaled our fish. I learned to fillet fish with an electric knife and he was against it at the beginning because you lose so much meat. However, it was not long when I went back to visit him and he was using an electric knife to fillet his fish. The time savings and end product of a fillet is just much better in most cases.

Just reminiscing...not debating the ease and practicality of filleting. I am an avid fillet guy and have been since my first electric fillet knife in 1983. Those units have come a long way! Started this thread kinda like "back in my day we used to walk barefoot 5 miles to school in 2 ft of snow. And it was uphill both ways!"

Fillet all the way , do not know how to clean a quail or dove other than plucking the feathers ! You have a suggestion or method ?

On quail & dove we breast them out. Using kitchen shears clip the wings as close to the body as possible and holding bird firmly, breast side up, insert your free hand's thumb at bottom of breast bone into body cavity, lift up popping the breast. Pull off skin, wash, wrap with jalapeno and bacon and grill! You'll never pluck another! Kinda like scaling fish...no more!

Us older folks, I'm 74 and my dad and grand dad grew up in the country during the depression and world war years.
I remember growing up and nothing was wasted.
As kids we sat down at the table to eat fish and my dad would remind us every time to watch for bones, and we learned that fish had bones and you dealt with it, and never gave it a second thought.
Chicken, doves, quail it didn't matter as they were plucked and nothing wasted.
We even had chicken soup with the feet added to the soup along with the necks, gizzards, hearts, and liver......It was great and I miss those days.

Below is a good video showing how to filet a fish. Like you, I grew up scaling and gutting fish but after I retired I wanted to make fillets my "city girl wife" would eat and cook. If it looks like it came from Kroger she is OK with it. This will also remove most of any bad stuff the fish has gotten into as most poisons and heavy metals reside in the fatty tissue in the skin and belly meat.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-KRqFBz65M

My Dad when I was a kid he would skin them and they claim that it tasted better frying them with the bone in them Plus they didnt waste any meat
I

I have heard people make that claim, but look at all the meat left between the bones when they are done eating. About the same as I leave on
a fish when I fillet it. I still fillet with an old school Rapala.
good luck
Mo

I fillet everything but bream and most of those. Will pick the small ones, scale , cut down dorsal and anal fins, pull out with catfish pliers.