Saturday, August 18, 2007

Bleeding Fish


Bleeding fish prior to cleaning is an important step that many fisherman forget to do or don't think is important. Bleeding your fish prior to cleaning will reward you with nice white fillets that are void of most coloration except white.

To bleed a fish insert your knife into the belly area of the fish near the head or throat. Twist your knife slightly and let the fish bleed out. You can also make a cut through the gills under the back of the gill plate.

Catfish are a very bloody fish in my opinion. If you just fillet out the catfish you are left with a very reddish fillet. If bled first, fillet and left to soak in water for a short while you end up with a nice firm, white fillet that with rival any fish that swims and boy do they taste good. The picture is the result of properly cleaning 2 catfish that we caught last night. One was 7 pounds and one was 5 pounds. They were a little larger than I like for eating but with an upcoming fish fry they will be perfect, especially if you soak the fillets in Mountain Dew first:)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great tip...I've always had a difficult time cooking fresh fish. I guess that's one of the reason's I've become primarily a "catch and release" guy. Those cats look very appealing...congrats on the catch!

Eagle Eyes said...

Very good information. I have fished for over (30) years and caught and cleaned a few fish. I had not heard this before. Fishing is a wonderful life as I find you never quit learning something that could be useful.

Tahra said...

Looking forward to tryin' some catfish at the fish fry!

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