Cleaning Your Catch

Sometimes part of the fishing adventure is getting to eat your catch for dinner, breakfast or lunch… of course, followed by s’mores!

Cleaning fish requires a very sharp knife, so please ensure a capable adult is in charge. The most popular method of cleaning a fish is to fillet it. With a sharp, narrow-bladed filleting knife follow these steps:

On a flat surface, hold the fish by the head and make a cut just behind the gill cover from the backbone down to just behind the front (pectoral) fin, being careful not to cut the backbone.
Then run the knife along the length of the back bone cutting close to, but not into, the rib cage, pulling the meat away from the bones as you go.
Next cut down through the fish behind the rib cage to the vent and run the blade close to the spine, all the way out to the tail. To remove the skin, lay the fillet skin-side down on a flat surface. Hold the tail tightly, then run your knife blade away from you, cutting between the skin and the meat, the length of the fillet.

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