Filleting Trout

[Wynand13]

I know many people have different ways of doing this, and  I have tried a few methods.
A friend of mine cut of the head and tail, skin it and  cut it in two pieces, this leaves you with more bones than what you can imagine  and it’s horrible to eat. I would like to share this method as one of many and  please tell me yours? Unfortunately I never thought to share this while actually  gutting fish, and don’t have pictures to go with so I hope what I type make  sense
To start off please use a very sharp knife, as this makes  everything so much easier.
Personally I do not like the skin and due to this reason  start with the following.
Please do not let the fish go stiff with its intestines  inside this spoils it a bit. I would recommend doing step one right after the catch,  you can the do the rest later.
Step1:
Hold the trout belly up, with the index fingers and thumb  going into the gills of the fish. Make a cut underneath the chin; you will feel  where the bones end. Insert the knife from side to side cutting towards the  nose. You should cut out the soft bit underneath the mouth (basically the chin  of the trout)
Step2:
Once you’ve made that little cut you then start from the  back up. The little hole just in front of the tail fin is where you insert the  knife. Again you cut towards the head and stop just short of the cut you just  made across the fish`s chin. Be careful with this cut as you can puncture  intestines so be delicate and cut with the knife`s edge only.
Step3:
Now you hold the trout by its lower jaw, with one hand  with the other you thumb in the top of the cut you just made and pull down.  This will remove the gills and guts of the fish. You will be left with the top  side of the trout`s head and the body.
You can stop here and ask the place you fish to put the  rest on ice for you.. Or you can continue..
Step4:
Take the head and bend it backwards and towards the tail,  the skin will come with the head and you should be able to pull the skin off  totally. Just cut the peeled skin off with the tailfin when you get to that  end. This takes some practise but once you get the feel of it its actually  quite easy.
Step5:
Put the  trout on its side, or however you are comfortable with it. Put the knife in on  the spine, you will feel that there`s some meat before you reach the spine, cut  from back to front on the base of the spine. Be careful to cut straight and do  not cut through bone.
Step6
Again you  can lay the fish like you want I prefer belly down.. Take one piece of the back  fillet (there should be 2) and pull it slightly enough to put the knife in and  see what you are doing, using gentle stokes to cut from head to tail, while  pulling on the meat you should be able to cut on the ribcage/skeleton of the  fish, be careful not to pull to hard and cut on the bone if possible. Once done  you will have the one fillet, do the same on the other side. This will leave  the ribcage/skeleton behind, with a very small amount of meat on it that you  can either cook of the bone (for fishcakes), if you have a lot of fish, or just  throw away.
Step7
You should  be left with two almost boneless fish fillets, put it on its skin side bottom  on the cut board and slightly cut with the knife in lengths of the fillets very  shallow and slow cuts if you feel/hear bone, remove them by pulling them out. I  use my small long nose pliers for this.
Step8
Cook and  enjoy, but you should still be careful of the bone that got away…

[J-Rock]

  Lekker step by step tuturial...

[WalkersKiller]

 :shre:

[deezynking]

 :shre:

[Wynand13]

Thanks WK
The main problem I have with Catch and keep places is that they only gut the fish and this makes it a bit difficult, I usually ask them to take the weight and then I take the first few steps to gut them myself

[Manuel Junior]

 :shre:

[Sailor]

 :shre:

[travelmember]

With small delicate fish like trout I prefer to keep it simple.
Firstly I always keep the skin on freshwater gamefish when cooking as this is where most of the good oils are - in the subcutaneous layer.
It is also very simple to peel off once cooked.
Take your sharp knife and place it on the side of the fish behind the pectoral fin aiming towards the head of the fish at a 45 degree angle. Cut evenly behind the gills so the the knife base is against the throat and the blade is in the middle of the head above the brain.
Turn over and repeat.
Stab the blade up the anal vent and twist 180 degrees to cut the alimentary canal.
Grab the head, twist and pull. Head, gills, guts all come out. (for small fish, stop here, fill with smoked oysters and pan fry)
For bigger fish simply slice the fillet off in one go. Hold your knife against the backbone starting at the head end, run it through the fish back to belly and then follow the spine all the way to the tail.
Turn over and repeat.
Now you have to get rid of the ribcage and lateral bones. For the former, simply run your knife under the knobbly end bits down to the belly and peel off. Normally you can also take away some of the stomach lining leaving you with clear flesh.
For the lateral bones it is best to run the knife along either side of the them - if the fillet is laid down, skin down, then run the knife head to tail above the lateral line and then head to tail below the lateral line. Keep the cuts less than 5mm apart and do not go through the skin. You can then remove the whole line of bones.


Should look like this

[Wynand13]

travelmember

Thanks for sharing - Will definitely do the fill with smoked oysters next time, never tried it before.. 

I do agree that there are a lot of nutrition underneath the skin, personally I just do not like the taste at all, that is just personal preference.