To Fillet.......or Not To Fillet?

[BlueWave]

Every summer we catch one mess of Bream (Bluegill) for a fish fry and I get grief from 3 generations telling me not to fillet them but to take out the spoon and scale and clean. Am I the only one that fillets bream?????

[fishinwrench]

They are really good scaled and scored if you're doing a big mess in a deep outdoor fryer. But for skillet business I fillet'em and cook them like I do Crappie. Dip them in egg/milk and roll them in a 50/50 mix of crushed Ritz crackers and cornmeal.

WHY ? are you catchin'em already ?

[brownieman]

I fillet everything...kids never cared for bones. I will just head gut and cook em if someone wants some like that...cook em hard and the tails are kinda like fish chips. I broil most my trout and they fillet very easy...small rib bones.

[flyfishmaster]

Heck as a kid, I never heard the word fillet until I was around 12. So we always had to spoon clean the fish, even bass.

After I was taught how to fillet that is all I do now for all my fish I keep, except for trout (I hate those little side bones) I keep the skin on them.

Later,

FFM

[brownieman]

I don't care for that little line of bones either...they do score out very easily but do lay at a strange angle.

Some do leave the skin on ...my only problem with that is the bloodline which is very fishy tasting. It lays on the outter sides of the fillets so when leaving the skin on you have no choice but to leave the bloodline there.

I know on fish such as whites you need to clean all the bloodline off as possible, if not they don't seem to eat near as well unless you don't mind the fishy taste. Don't know why but some fish even the same species have much more of a bloodline than others. To me that's one great thing about walleye and most panfish, nice fllets and little bloodline if any.

I can't wait to put the knife to a mess...time is near...

[bigredbirdfan]

I filet everything with the exception of trout. 50% of the time I filet em and fry em and the other 50% I wrap em in foil with goodies. Scaling is kind of a lesson for kids like skinning squirrel. The whole where food comes from thing.

[brittsnbirds]

ffm-

If we ever get to fish together I will show you how to fillet trout and you WILL NOT find a bone!! The key is scoring the fillet's correctly and HOT oil. The way I tell the oil is ready, I throw a "strike anywhere" match into the oil. If it lights it is ready!!

You've got me salivating.

Pat

[bigredbirdfan]

ffm-

If we ever get to fish together I will show you how to fillet trout and you WILL NOT find a bone!! The key is scoring the fillet's correctly and HOT oil. The way I tell the oil is ready, I throw a "strike anywhere" match into the oil. If it lights it is ready!!

You've got me salivating.

Pat

I agree. Soo hot it would make betty crocker faint.

[BlueWave]

They are really good scaled and scored if you're doing a big mess in a deep outdoor fryer. But for skillet business I fillet'em and cook them like I do Crappie. Dip them in egg/milk and roll them in a 50/50 mix of crushed Ritz crackers and cornmeal.

WHY ? are you catchin'em already ?

No Wrench.................I am not that good to catch them at this time of year. Thats a 1st week of May thing at my place. Thanks for the advice.

[Seth]

I fillet everything, even trout. The little rib bones that you guys are talking must cook up when I fry or bake my trout because I've yet to get stuck by one. The only fish that I've had bone problems with are suckers if I don't score them well enough or fry them long enough.