Cleaning Cats

Forget everything you have heard about how to clean a catfish. You know the routine....nail the fish to a tree, cut around its head, use a plier to grab the skin and peel down etc. etc. etc. I will never understand why people go through all of this just to clean a catfish. Instead of this drugery grab your electric fillet knife and procede to fillet the catfish just as you would a walleye. This is the only way that I clean cats, from the small ones to the big ones. To make the job a little easier I'll cut off the sharp pectoral fin on the larger cats. This unfriendly fin has a tendency to stick straight out during the filleting process. Bleeding a catfish will also make the filleting job cleaner and the resulting fillets much more attractive. Just make a cut into and then down through the back side of the gills. After you are finished filleting, soak the fillets in a lightly salted waterbath overnight in the fridge and you will be rewarded with nice firm white fillets that will rival most other freshwater fish.