How to clean?

[daddywpb]

My wife loves to catch catfish. She would keep them and eat them if we knew how to clean them and an easy way to get the meat off. We are both new to fishing, but she loves it. Any tips on preparing the cats to eat would be appreciated.
Thanks.

[hardertr]

Catfish were the first fish I ever learned how to clean.  I remember cleaning them with my grandfather when I was 7 or 8.  My job was always skinning.

Stick them between the eyes (high on the head) with a knife to kill them.  Give them a few minutes to "settle down" while you get the rest of your cleaning gear together.  There are 2 ways to clean them...skin them and use them whole, or fillet them like any other fish.

To use them whole, skin them first - make a cut all the way around the head.  Then grab the skin with a pair of pliers and pull the skin off the meat towards the tail.  It won't all come off in one piece (usally not), but you can pull it all off in strips.  Then cut them down the belly from head to vent and gut them.  Then make a cut along both sides of the dorsal fin and pull it out (with the pliers) toward the head.  Lop off the head, tail and pectoral fins..and your done.

Filleting  them is almost as easy as any other fish.  Their skin is the only problem.  It's a lot thinner and has no scales, so it's a lot easier to skin them before you fillet them with a pair of pliers.  Same concept from then on...split the fish down both sides of the spine (as close as possible).  Cut out the ribs and fins.  I like to seperate the "nuggets", or belly meat, from the rest of the fillet.  It has a different taste and is best fried rather than baked like a fillet.

The most important thing about a cat is to remember to MAKE SURE IT'S DEAD before you start skinning it.  Those barbs HURT...especially if you are ever "privelaged" enough to catch one under the finger nail!

[predator_huntin]

hardertr explained it exactly the way i do it.  i dont use the whole fish method, i use the fillet method.  first things first, you definately want to kill the fish before you start skinning them.  they dont take to kindly to skinning if they are still flopping.  if you've ever been barbed by a catfish, you'll know exactly what we mean...these are some of the toughest fish out there...they can amazingly stay alive long amounts of time even out of the water.

now the cooking...

i love to roll a fillet in a cracked egg, flop it around in a plate of cornmeal and drop it in a deep fryer until it floats.  that is some really good eating.  the belly meat does have a different taste if you fry it in a pan, so you might want to seperate it like hardertr said.  i almost exclusively deep fry my cats, so i never seperate them as i cant taste a difference in the meat after deep frying.  hope this helps

[J-Train]

I love catching and eating catfish.  The cleaning isn't quite as much fun.  I use an electric knife to fillet cats, just like bass, perch, or bluegills.  I switch to a standard fillet knife to remove the skin from cats.  With a little practice, it's a lot quicker and easier than skinning with pliers, and I end up with nice, boneless fillets. :grin:

[Don Fischer]

I don't usually catch that big of fish. But up to the size you can hold well in your hand, I slit the skin down each side of the backbone and around the head. Than I grab the head in my hand and a finger over each barb. Pull back on the barbs and the head and barbs make a great handle for skinning. Some years ago a lady showed me an easy way to skin them and I can't remember it. Best I can remember, slit down each side of the backbone. Next cut thru the back of the head just thru the spine. Next, bend the head forward and pull down. Really neat and fast. Haven't been catfishing for a couple years tho so don't remember real well. Of course, then filet them, roll in beer batter with cajun spice in it and deep fry! Don't invite anyone over for dinner unless you've got a truck load of cats.

[suthincomfort]

will work better if you put a 16 penny nail in a board or tree . then where the v is on the torso of the catfish slap him on there . then you don't have to hold him while you separate him from his skin. cut around the head just below the gill slit's n start peeling the skin down with pliers . i have used this on catfish as big as 40 pounds & never had a problem. tom

[backstrap]

i use a elitric knife i dont bother killing them by the time u wait for each 1 to die u could have falied 2 or 3 but i have a cleaning station out in my back yard has a old sink so i can wash the meat when i am done and throw the meat in the sink while i am cleaning more and have a bridge plank big thick board with a 1 inch hole drilled trough it this is all built together with the sink  so i can stick there side fin in while i am cleaning them i just start behide the side fin go down tell it stops u will fill it and turn the blade and start  runing it down the spin or back bone go tell its almost off and then flip it over and run the nife balde along the skin but dont cut the first cut all the way off this just make it easyer if it is still conected to the fish the more u do this the easyer it will get and after all the cleaning is done and your washing the meat u will see some of the backbone in the meat its like a zipper pull on both side of it and it will come out

[ihookem]

If you peel off the skin, make sure the silver backing from the skin is cut off the meat. It makes the meat taste fishy. Also, I always cut the throat on a cat to make it bleed out . That makes the meat taste better. You can see for yourself if you want, try with and without cutting the throat  and the fish you  cut the throat on will have whiter and cleaner meat with less red tint to it and taste less fishy. Also, channel cats have LOTS of oil in them and will start tasting strong real quick, so don't let it sit in the hot sun at all.So cut the throat and put it on lots of ice till you clean it. This is why you hear all kinds of stories about the taste of catfish. Some say they are awesome, the next guy gags at the thought of eating cats.

[hillbill]

backstrap, thats zactly how i clean them, however i never thought bout drilling the hole for the sidefin to stik in. thats a good idea.filleting catfish is very hard to explain but easy to do.once yu see it done yu will not believe how easy it is with an electric knife.i can clean 1 to 8 lb cats at about the rate of one every 1 or two min, with completely boneless fillets.practice makes perfect.

[KYBOY]

I skin and fillet mine to. I usally have them on ice befor hand so there nice dead and chilled when I start.

[wncchester]

I won't bother to tell the story of how we learned this but it works great and I've never heard of anyone else doing it. 

Soak your fish - any fish - overnight in a salt water solution!  My wife puts maybe a quarter cup of table salt in a half gallon of water, enough to cover the fish completely, and soaks them overnight in the refrigerator before cooking.  Salt pulls out much of the blood and other less tasty liquids in the flesh AND improves the meat's texture.  It even works to prepare the fish for freezing better. 

Don't cook it with the normal amount much salt, it won't be needed.  Not for our taste anyway.

[MS Mule]

There is a soft spot on top of a catfishes head that you can find with a knife point. Stick your fillet knife through that soft spot into the fishes brain to kill it. It will flop once or twice and that will be it.If it's a small fish, say less than five lbs. I grab him by sticking my left thumb into his mouth and my  fingers into his gills. Then I cut around his head from one side to the next but don't cut the skin on his throat. Then I cut the skin down each side of it's backbone  past that spine on it's back. If the fish is anything besides a flathead I will then shove my knife through the body cavity where the backbone joins the head and cut down through all the rib bones. I then make a few pulls on the hide with skinning pliers to get the skin off. I break off the head and the guts and rib bones go in the river along with the head. If it's a flathead I don't make the rib cut I just skin it. Usually the skin will tear down each side leaving the skin on the belly and forming a point at the bottom of the body cavity. I pull this skin up towards the head then slit the belly open to remove the entrails. The reason for these diffent approaches is that I don't eat the belly meat of anything but a flathead. I use a similar approach on larger fish except I usually hang them from a nail or in the case of really big fish run a rope through thier gills and out thier mouth. Then they get hung from a limb.