Walleye Fishy Taste??

[skinny5382]

Recently the flavor of "some" of the walleye we've been eating has a fishy stronger taste. I'm cooking it the same way I have for years. However, we have changed the way we fillet the fish.
I have until recently used a handheld fillet knife and manually filleted without going into the guts. Taking care to not cut through any bones and stay out of the gut cavity. About the middle of last season we purchased an electric knife and now its a two step process. #1 use the electric knife to cut through all the way down to the tail passing through the guts.
Do you think this could be the reason for the change?

Let me know if I didn't explain that very well.

Thanks

[DW72]

Have you noticed more blood in the meat vs. clean white fillets?

[skinny5382]

Have you noticed more blood in the meat vs. clean white fillets?

Yes I have. Sometimes I would bleed the fish before putting them in the cooler and sometimes I wouldn't.

[Budman118]

I still do it old school with a hand held fillet knife. It really didn’t seem to save much time with an electric knife. I also started taking the blood line out cutting the center bones out and the bloodline pulls right out like a zipper. I don’t worry about my fillets being in 2 pieces. They cook just as good as a whole fillet however you chose to eat them.

[DW72]

Per Budman's point, taking out the bloodline along the center of the tail certainly helps. Also, sometimes the electric can shave the spine there and leave some fine bone chunks on the surface. Most important for me is not to have blood in the meat. I don't have a live well so have to use a cooler. I cut their gills and drag them before throwing them in the cooler. It makes a huge difference in my opinion. If the meat is pink looking vs. nice clean white....big difference. It also matters how long they are dead of course. Cleaning them ASAP vs. a day or two later on ice also matters. I've done it both ways many times as sometimes timing and travel hasn't allowed me to clean immediately .

[campbja]

Recently the flavor of "some" of the walleye we've been eating has a fishy stronger taste. I'm cooking it the same way I have for years. However, we have changed the way we fillet the fish.
I have until recently used a handheld fillet knife and manually filleted without going into the guts. Taking care to not cut through any bones and stay out of the gut cavity. About the middle of last season we purchased an electric knife and now its a two step process. #1 use the electric knife to cut through all the way down to the tail passing through the guts.
Do you think this could be the reason for the change?

Let me know if I didn't explain that very well.

Thanks

I always remove the white belly meat (cut or scrape off), zipper them and rinse out the blood. Works for me to remove fishy taste

[Squatch]

One thing I have done recently, I've experimented with smaller striper and catfish that we catch in indiana, we soak fillets in milk for a couple of hours and that seems to take a lot of fishy taste out of them as well. You could give that a try.

[Fishn]

We do that with steelhead