To all of the guys that are catching trout, how are you cleaning them? I caught a bunch the other day and gutted them, cut off the heads and scraped the scales, which was a PITA. Do y'all scale them?

That was the first time I'd eaten trout, BTW and they were freakin' delicious. Me and my little boy ate all 5 of them in one sitting.

I was just fixing to reply to your question that you left on my thread. Trout are the easiest fish to clean. All I do his gut em and cut off the heads. Rinse em off super good and your are good to go. You don't need to scale em.

Gut em and cut the heads off! Trout are one super fish to eat!

Thanks for the info, guys. They were some of the best fish I've eaten. Definitely gave crappie a run for their money.

Wild rainbow trout beat crappie for eating. But stocked trout can not compete with crappie, imho.

I leave heads on ....its old school trout cleanin
just run the knife up from the you know to the gills
cut the gills lose from the throat on the bottom of the fish
pull up on the gills and they will easily pull off the spine
the entire inards will come right out attach�d to them on a downward pull
slightly slice the membrane along the spine top to bottom
run the thumb up and down the pine a few times to remove that blood vein
rinse well and hit the ice till ya want to eat em
the quicker a dead trout does this routine the better ....btw
you want them to retain the original colors if you can ...
clear eyes and bright colors equal better eating
faded fish aint near as tasty ....
see finished fish product below ...

Gut em,cut the heads off, and make sure you get that blood line out over the spine. Trout are the easiest to clean out of all the fish. Just my two cents.

I like to do as Ketchn said though never did it as smooth as he described.

Awesome video! The only thing I do different is I cut the head off.

I've never cleaned one. Why don't you scale them?

Plus #1.

Cut from the anal hole up past the gills. Crack the head back and pull the skin and the head all at one time. I use my thumbnail to remove the blood line

So you take the skin off of yours? does that make a difference in taste?

Small ones I gut to gill,the scales caramelize so don't worry about scaling. I like to eat the skin but that's just me. Thumb out the bloodline good to go. On the rare occasion I keep one out of the trophy zone sometimes I filet.