How To Clean Catfish

When fishing for food, many fishermen that catch catfish will hurriedly throw the fish back because they have a reputation as being hard to clean. However, that simply is not true when one knows what he or she is doing. And catfish have some of the tastiest fillets out of all freshwater fish. Here is a simple guide that will teach you how to clean catfish the right way as quickly and easily as possible to ensure you don’t release your dinner back into the lake ever again.

First of all, you will want a sharp fillet knife and possibly an anti-cutting glove that is made out of steel mesh or Kevlar. Make sure that you have a trash can to throw away the parts of the catfish that you don’t want or need and a large, clean workspace.

Many people mistake the barbs that the catfish have surrounding its mouth as a weapon for stinging, but this is not true. They are actually used by the catfish to find food.

Clean the catfish as soon as possible. You will find that its body is covered with skin, not scales like most fish. This requires some special steps in cleaning and filleting the fish. To begin, grasp the spine of the fish firmly and make a shallow incision all the way around its head with a sharp knife. You will find that the catfish’s skin is thicker the larger it is. Sometimes the skin is so thick because of the catfish’s size that you may have to lay it in a pot of boiling water for a bit to soften it up before making the incision.

When the initial cut is made, you can begin to peel off the skin. This is done by starting at the head where you have made the cut and pulling firmly but slowly back towards the tail. Many times, the tougher spots can be overcome by using a pair of pliers. Once all of the skin has been removed from the fish you can remove its head simply by cutting it off.

Once the head is off, you can begin gutting the catfish. This is done by making an incision in the underside of the belly from where the head was removed all of the way back. Reach in with your bare hands and remove all of the guts that you can grab.

Once this is completed, you can remove the fins and the tail, if you so desire, and rinse the catfish with clean water. If you split the catfish into two separate sections, it will be much easier to ensure that the catfish is thoroughly cleaned.

The catfish can now be cooked to your liking. Just a few of the ways to cook catfish include baking, batter-dipping, deep-fried, and pan-fried.