cleaning white fish

[sconceptor]

What is the best way to filet a whitefish?

 

I tried doing it like I do a walleye, and running the knife down the spine, and over the ribs, but it didn't work too well. The meat was terrible soft and mushy.

 

On my second fish, I gutted it and then removed the filets, more like cleaning a salmon or trout. I then tried to then remove the bones from the filet, but it was tough! The lateral bones were hard to get out of the soft flesh, and the taking the ribs off leaves basically left nothing but a 2" strip from the top of the spine down to the top of the lateral bone. There's not much of a tail section to get a good chunk of meat off either.

 

It was my first time trying to clean whitefish, and found it very tough! Any help would be appreciated! I should've paid the hut rental guys a few dollars to show me how to clean the 2 we kept from the 8 we caught yesterday.

[Fish Farmer]

Why would you want to fillet a Whitefish. Whitefish are the best baked open in the oven .

Gut, Scale, then cut down the cavity to open wide. Place on baking sheet with foil skin side down, leave open. Salt,Pepper, sliced onions on top with a little butter then bake. Whitefish has a lot of fat and moisture, so I bake to dry the flesh a bit. The bone and ribs just lift out like a bake trout. Spatula the fish on a plate and enjoy. Theirs no waste. Very mild tasting fish, but stink like hell cooking .

Now I got to wipe my lips

[Big Cliff]

I use to buy smoked white fish up in Godrich and it was fantastic. Now if I could only catch a few, I'd like to try smoking it myself. Anyone got a good recipe for smoking white fish?

[Spiel]

....I'm guessing it had frozen then thawed before cleaning, yes?

I try not to let them freeze and if they do filet while still semi-frozen then cook, don't refreeze!