Just curious...I've never had much luck with fileting(sp?) cats. I usually just skin'em. Not sure why but i find them more difficult to filet than any other fish. The meat just cuts away different...maybe its just me.
How about you?

I prefer to fillet them.

I skin them too. Most filet knifes wont work for me on the cats, I can fillet with aregular electric knife with meat blades. The teeth arent as tall on the regular meat blades as the filet blades. So it aint just you. I use the fillet knife to cut the cats up after skinning. I can fillet bass crappie and whites with an electric fillet knife befour you can say dont do it. So I would say it aint YOU its US!

Fillet the only way to go. I normally start my cut slanted behind the rib cage and along the backbone and (unlike with other fish) I exit leaving hide on the fillet set it aside, Then core the area above the rib cage and after making a full circle, I slice the skin open at the top, grab the cylinder shaped piece and rip it out. After tossing the scraps, I take the fillet and hold the small end down with my fingers and start my cut about a half inch from the end, leaving me a place to hold it down, the exit just like on a crappie fillet. The knife needs to be very sharp so I try to avoid cutting any bones. This is as fast for me than an electric even faster since I dont have to hook it up. Also, works better on a flat surface instead of the grooves on a plastic cleaning board.

Good Luck


Bo

i fillet mine

I skin my cats.

skin em then filet em
if they are small (no bigger than 8lbs) dont skin them and use an eletric knife

Fillet all the way. True some is wasted, but it's quick and easy. Used to skin and that was too much work for the reward. Fillet is the best way.

Skin then fillet. It helps if you can remove the dorsal fin and the plate in the top of the rib cage. Makes life LOTS easier on filleting 'em. Actually, I usually skin and gut 'em, then throw 'em on ice or in the fridge till the next day and fillet 'em then. Lots easier when they're cold and stiff.

Fillet.

What he said and how he said it...

Not trying to hi-jak this post but somewhere in this video it shows some nice channel cats being filleted - and check out the blade coming out of the kniife!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=e8wH6nHs68s

Depends on size really. Actually I like the flavor of the whole skinned catfish better.

i filet because i have trouble skinning them ... tffer "luvthemslabs " showed me how once but it still seems very hard . ideally i would rather skin them because i bake all my fish . is there an easy way to do this ?????? .if you can pm me that would be great ! thx w/r/j

Here is how a friend of mine does it........

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