How do you clean and prepare your catch?

[jonk]

Just curious what your favorite methods are.

For me, for walleye and perch, I usually fillet the fish and cut out the walleye's cheek meat. If it's a large fish, I get the belly fillets too. If a smaller fish, I usually don't bother. Anything under 12" those are just going to be a small cut and otherwise bones. Same with channel cats. The stuff about nailing the head to a board is nonsense. No need to skin it. Scrape the slime off with a knife and fillet as normal. You get a nice clean cat that's 12-20", that's some fine eating. Creamier than walleye. Slightly stronger flavor.

Now, for steelhead or really large walleye (over 26") I often cut off the head/tail, scale it, and grill it to let the oils drip out. Which kind of gets me to the cooking part.

I love the traditional fish fry, either deep fried or pan fried, but I also really like to bake the fish. Wrap in tinfoil with some butter, lemon, a little pepper, dash of oregeno, and bake till flaky. The poaching effect and sealed tinfoil makes it really hard to dry out the fish in this method, and you taste the fish more than breading. Works great with walleye or perch.

Catfish I like to fry, that's about it. Don't care for it baked.

Sometimes I will keep white bass. It has a very firm, red flesh that turns mostly white when cooked. I like to put those in a grill basket and cook on high heat with some cajun spices, or baste with mustard. Just takes a minute or two per side at 700 degrees. NOT my favorite fish, but they actually are pretty decent eating.

[branhamautomotive]

With my wife's new diet we found a great baked walleye dish. We use equal parts of parm cheese, instant potatoes, and souther style or Cajon panko chips. Normal I make ours spicier than the kids. Use an egg wash,dip in the mix, so eine a second bath and mix dip, then baked at 475 for about 15 mins

[claudiacarbis]

Nice threat to have a discussion about How do you clean and prepare your catch ? Well everyone have their personal view about cleaning and prepare catch. I have my team of some great people those help me to clean my catch & sometime I do it alone in weekends