What type of Knife

[Clampet]

Well, got tired of using my Walleye filleting knife, which I found to be a little on the large size fer the Perch.

A fellow ice angler from the USA advised me to purchase an electric knife.

I did for $8.95 on sale.

 

I tried it for about three fish, then decided it wasn't the solution fer me.

I then invested $20 some odd dollars on a 4" Rapala Filleting knife, and I found it made the job a lot easier.

 

Here is the result of 35 Perch, fillet, de-boned, skinless....

 

[fishnsled]

What time is dinner??? I've always wondered about using an electric knife. I've seem one person use it and it worked like a charm. Maybe it's a matter of getting use to it? Did you buy one for filleting or just a regular electric knife? Nice job on the fillets BTW

[turtle]

The Rapala or any 4-5 inch blade knife is good as long as its sharp and has a flexible blade for putting downward pressure to get the skin off the meat. Fried perch-my favourite!!

[fishnsled]

Dude on the lake recommended a cheap one from Walmart, which is what I bought.

Kinda like splittin hairs with an axe, no finesse there.

 

Ya can't afford to miss on them small Perch, or you wind up with toothpicks.

 

 

I couldn't agree more. You don't want to waste any of those tasty morsels. Good call on the Rapala.

[Greencoachdog]

Why waste the time to fillet them? All us Southern boys fry our panfish whole. Just scale,behead, and gut the little guys. Throw them in a gallon zip loc back with your favorite fry mix and throw them in the pan, allow about 3 mins. per side (depending on the size of the fish). Remove from pan and place on paper towels to drain. Use a fork and start at the dorsal removing the meat from the back bone on the side that is facing up... when all the meat is removed from that side,simply remove the back bone with an upward pull and there's another fine fillet laying there! It takes a little practice, but once you get the hang of it you'll never waste the time to fillet small fish. Not nearly as much waste as filleting (meat AND time). I never fillet any fish shorter than 12".

[Rich]

After using the larger knife for a long time I also switched down to the 4" Normark knife.. wow what a difference it made. I've done over 100 perch in about an hour & a half. Thats my PB, lol

[Bernie]

I also use a Normark but this has about an 8" blade with the inside 4" serrated. I find the serrations are great for the cut behind the gill and the tip for the fillet/skinning process.

[Rich]

I thought the Normark and the Rapala were basically the same knife? Looks the same. Anyways mine was about 20 bucks.

[Spiel]

....Been using my 4" Rapala on perch for over 20 years now, no plans on changing what works best!

[ch312]

the rapala electric fillet knife is awesome. got it on sale at CT for $35.99 and i love it. i can now fillet perch and make every fillet perfect and it only took a few fish to get good with it. its almost impossible to screw up using it. alot of people think they tear the meat and the final product is a ragged hunk of meat. not the truth

 

you can actually push down firmly and the blade will flex around the backbone so you get more meat than with a normal knife. i guess its the angle of the serrated knife?

 

works great for cutting meat nice and thin for jerky too