Taste one for flavor before dressing them all. Dont use any seasoning. If they are on flavor (taste good) they won't need doctoring, soaking with buttermilk or smearing with mustard or such things, to taste good. If off flavor you have to wash them out or you are probably wasteing your time.
If they are off flavor keep them alive in fresh water for three days and the bad flavor will wash out. Then dress them. The trick is to get them in the trough in good enough shape to live 3 days. My father learned to wash them out from an old commercial fisherman. Real bad flavor can be changed to excellent fish with 3 days in fresh water. Plenty of aeriation started before you put the fish in the trough and no clorinated city or clorinated water association water.
This will work with scale fish also," the trick is getting the fish in the trough in good enough shape to live three days".
I raised catfish commercially in ponds and would swing anywhere from 25,000 to over a 100,000 pounds across a levy from a bad pond to a good pond to get them ready to sell. I did it many times successfully.
If they are on flavor you can dress them whole and steak them or fillett them and cut the fillets into steaks (really big fish). Fillett steaks might end up inch or so square fingers that are easy to cook. Steaks cut fron whole fish are a little harder to cook successfully because of the different flesh thicknesses and bones. Cut between the rib bones like cutting up a slab of pork ribs to avoid picking out bone fragments while eating the fish. Jaw muscles are good to.
Catfish is an oily fish and you would have to smoke it in a pan or on a wire rack, not hanging from a limb with the skin on it to hold it together. If smoked It is best if eaten when cooked. You can freeze it raw and smoke it when ever you want to thaw some and smoke it. The skin can't be left on to hold the fish together while smokeing. If the skin stays moist it will turn to a soft goo. If the skin gets dry while cooking it gets real hard and unedible.
For smokeing (it will cover some off flavors) I use some medium sweet white wine with a little soy sauce and some basil and garlic salt added. Put the fish in a pan with just enough marinade to cover the bottom of the pan and baste the fish a few times. Have a little extra baste made up so you can add a little if needed. Use pecan wood without bark for the smoke. When it flakes it is done.
Big yellows/flat heads will only bite live bait especially panfish and crawfish. You can catch big blues baiting with dead snakes, cut bait or stink bait, most anything.
ear.
