I clean all the fish I retain with no problems but catfish give me problems. I like to get my electric knife out and start behind the gills or fin and run the blade down its back bone. I do it like I clean crappie. It�s getting the skin off that�s a pain. How do you think I should get the skin off? Should I invest in one of those $5 skin pliers or what???? thanks for the help.

what i do is cut until im about 1/3 way to the rear fin flip the meat over so it is the cut part is still attached to the fish, take your knife aim down at and angle cut to you get to the skin then just slide your knife out a regular would probly be better but i dont know any thing about elc fliet knives

We use the old fashioned plain old fillet knife. Just start at the head cut down the back bone, and around the ribs all the way until about a 1/4 inch from the tail, then cut the skin of with the knife(we call it cut and flip). I dont realy know of any better way to explain it, Oh yeah and dont forget the belly meat there is alot of unused meat there.

matt

That how I do Crappie but the skin likes to stay with the meat.

Soap and hot water.

Just kidding.
I use an electric but watched Doug "Tex" clean 50 in no time with a regular knife and skinning pliers.

Check these out also:

http://www.texasfishingforum.com/cgibin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=002821

http://www.texasfishingforum.com/cgibin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=002266

http://www.texasfishingforum.com/cgibin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=000365

Mark, I have used an electric knife for years to filet catfish. One thing I suspect you might be doing is trying to trim too close to the skin.

With a crappie you can get away with this because there is no waste on a crappie, and the heavy scales kind of give you a flat firm surface to seperate the meat from.

With a kitty, you almost always have 3/16" of waste meat right against the skin, so flatten your knife out a bit, instead of running it at a downward angle like you would with a crappie. This will leave a layer of trash meat attached to the skin.

I typically slab my kitties off, rib cage, skin and all on my first pass. Pitch that slab in some cold water until I am finished slabbing them all. Then I take each slab, bury the fingernails of my left hand into the tail end of the filet and make the pass with my electric knife back toward the rib cage. I cut the rib cage out last.

I do this on all my fish....Crappies, kitties, sandies, line sides....But, the one thing I do with kitties, line sides, and sandies, is to flatten my blade out to where I am purposely running more parallel to the skin....Just so I will leave a fine layer of yuk meat that all three species have, on the skin. .

Depending on the size of the kitty you are fileting, you may still wind up with some skin out on the edges, if you are dressing a large kitty that won't flatten out good. But, I don't keep that size kitty, so it's never a problem for me.

Doggonnit Robsco, I looked at your links after I bothered to type the whole thing up again???

fillet with elec knife. Start right behind the dorsal fin and fillet just like a bass.Cut flat to the backbone almost to the tail, flip the fillet over, skinside down and angle knife slightly down and zip the skin right off! Practice a little. My buddy and I can do 100 channel cats an hour this way.

thanks yall...lots of great info.